Three Cinematic Villas in Italy

If Villa Malaparte is the most iconic villa on screen, it is not alone. Italy’s landscape of villas — patrician palaces, lakeside estates, country retreats — has long provided cinema with atmosphere and grandeur. 1. Villa Erba, Lake Como Film: Luchino Visconti’s family home; later featured in Ocean’s Twelve (2004). Why it matters: This 19th-centuryContinue reading “Three Cinematic Villas in Italy”

Villa Malaparte, Capri: A Modernist Monument on the Edge of the Sea

Perched on the cliffs of Capri’s Punta Massullo, its red walls blazing against the Tyrrhenian Sea, Villa Malaparte is one of the most arresting houses of the 20th century. At once austere and theatrical, it is both architectural landmark and cinematic icon, immortalised in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963). Few houses better embody the interplay ofContinue reading “Villa Malaparte, Capri: A Modernist Monument on the Edge of the Sea”