Location: In the old fishing village of Gargnano on the western shore of Lake Garda, not far from the cities of Verona, Bergamo and Mantua, lies the stately Villa Feltrinelli.
Special features: built in 1892 as the summer residence of the Italian publishing family Feltrinelli, the neo-Gothic villa, now a listed monument, served as the residence of Benito Mussolini during World War II, who proclaimed the Italian Social Republic from there in the fall of 1943. After the war, it fell back into the family’s lap: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, son of the last pre-war owner, founded the Milanese publishing house Feltrinelli in 1954, which published important literary works such as Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak or The Leopard by Giuseppe the Lampedusa. Later he met the German Inge Schoenthal, a photographer who portrayed such famous contemporaries as Picasso, Chagall, Simone de Beauvoir, Erika Mann, Gary Cooper and Billy Wilder. Their paths crossed at a party Ernst Rowohlt, German publisher of Ernest Hemingway, gave for Feltrinelli and they were married a short time later. After standing empty for a few years, more than 30 million euros were spent in 1997 to renovate the house to its original appearance.
Today, the villa’s 20 suites and two separate cottages accommodate a maximum of 40 guests. Each suite is unique and furnished with fine antiques, some of them original pieces of the Feltrinelli family. Frescoes, wood carvings, inlays and other ornate details also adorn the public areas. Characteristic is a maximum of tranquility and privacy, coupled with a service concept for guests “who already know the whole world and are looking for a getaway in secluded surroundings.”
Villa Feltrinelli is open from April to October.
