Villa Volpi: "une petite folie" on the coast of Sabaudia

This week, the heading Sunday Escape takes you to the discovery of Villa Volpi, a magnificent residence, located on the coast of Sabaudia, overlooking the sea and immersed in a park of 10 hectares, has always exerted a great charm on the cinema.

Its connection with this world is so visceral that, not only films like Scipione l'Africano, Divorzio all'Italiana, directed by Pietro Germi starring Marcello Mastroianni and Stefania Sandrelli, or Compagni di Scuola by Carlo Verdone they chose it as a set, but its origin is closely connected to the Venice Film Festival. It was in fact the wife of the founder of the International Film Festival, Countess Nathalie Volpi di Misurata to commission the construction of the building.

In the 60s the woman wrote to Tomaso Buzzi "Faites-moi une petite folie" and, after the works, on July 6th 1957, the Italian archistar's reply was "venez avec projet temlo greco palladien avec colonnes". This huge neo-classical Venetian-Palladian style villa is formed by a central building from which two lateral wings originate. The main body houses a large entrance, which recalls, with its majestic staircase, a painting by Escher; the living room and the dining room and, on the upper floor, three bedrooms. On the left side there are four other bedrooms with a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, while the right wing is dedicated to the kitchen and to a frescoed dining room. Continuing on this side, there are two other areas of the property that are intended for the attendants and, from an underground path, you get to two other wings: one dedicated to the apartments for guests with three bedrooms and the other used as a garage . What's more, on the 400-meter private beach there is a cottage and a stable. Insane!

If you are interested, it seems that Villa Volpi is still on sale....