At Villa San Michele in Anacapri, the sea merges with the sky and the colours of the garden shift with the seasons, creating an atmosphere that feels suspended beyond time
The greenery of the garden on the slopes of Mount Barbarossa, in Anacapri, defines Villa San Michele, the residence of Axel Munthe. The renowned Swedish doctor spent much of his life here. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, he began to work on what would become his architectural and botanical masterpiece.
The original core of the villa consisted of the ground floor and another dwelling above it, developed without a precise initial plan.
Romanesque arches preserve the harmonious rhythm of cloistered spaces, imbued with a quiet, non-religious sense of intimacy. And then, the true protagonists: the sea and the air, the breeze rising from below, gently brushing the foliage of the tall cypress trees planted “on a full moon night”.
In the garden, amphorae and kraters, fragments of columns and imperial busts appear along the ascending paths of a romantic park that eludes any rule other than empathy and the shaping force of nature itself.
Far from the mainland, Axel Munthe placed a granite sphinx to guard the integrity of silence and contemplation. Positioned at the most prominent corner of the chapel loggia, it invites visitors to enjoy a panorama unlike any other in the world.
Inside the rooms, there is a profusion of memorabilia: wooden sculptures alternate with columns and imperial busts. In the sequence of rooms on the upper floor, the furnishings act as a counterpart to the absolute whiteness of the walls, interrupted only by stone fragments and composite capitals.
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Photo ROBERTO PIERUCCI
Written by TEOBALDO FORTUNATO
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