Deeds and misdeeds of the Italians: our favourite stories!
Passionate about stories and people, we always make sure to propose visits & activities that speak to us as a tale, that involves us in a more deeper level, and make us live a destination in all its beautiful facets. And to learn more about the Italians who were big part of these places.
What tells more of a person than where he or she lived? Houses tell a lot about someone and we get to learn some facts and secrets about them.
Dive into these fascinating history facts with us!
Who lived in this beautiful villa on lake Garda?
The “Vittoriale degli Italiani” (in the town of Gardone Riviera, near Brescia) is an astonishing house was the home of one of the most controversial and famous poets of the ‘900. Gabriele D’Annunzio wasn’t famous only for his poems but also for his hectic love life and affairs (“Pleasure” is the name of his most famous novel). This house is a visual and architectural representation of his character and his “inimitable life”: arches, a fountain whit his words engraved and then so many different rooms with different purposes and incredible objects to look at. What best describes D’Annunzio is also the door of a room half of its usual height, so that everyone coming in had to bow for him.
Step back in time with this villa in Sicily
When entering this palace in the warm Sicily (Villa Florio in the island of Favignana), one can immediately have a perception of the contemporary decadence of the ‘900. The many rooms let you imagine parties and banquets, readings and concerts, political meetings around the pool table, nobles who parade, bridesmaids who debut in society. There is one curious story about this huge castle: a noblewoman, Franca Florio, protagonist of the belle époque, had two monkey as pets. Once one of them, while trying to imitate the guests smoking. set Franca’s room on fire. They both then escaped with some of her most beautiful and precious dresses on the Ficus tree just outside the window. She didn’t want the dresses back so they stayed there for years, embellishing the tree.
The house of secrets
The most infamous and known family in Italy, the Casata De’ Medici, owned different mansions in the Tuscany region. Villa medicea di Cerreto Guidi was built arund the 1570 by different architects. Both the outside’s and the inside’s architecture of the Villa seemed to indicate a military usage. A century later some changes were made for a more residential arrangement, after the villa had been already handed down different descendants. But what stayed between those walls is the brutal homicide of Isabella De’ Medici, by the hands of her husband’s hitmans, after her adultery. Nowadays it’s possible to admire the house in its former glory, to enjoy art collections and original mural paintings while also paying a visit to the statue of Isabella in the room and place she was killed.
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