Villa Potenziani

A monumental double-flighted staircase goes up the ridge of Colle San Mauro, just outside Rieti, leading to the Italian garden overlooking the residence of the noble family of the Potenziani, immersed in a vast park. Although the architectural and decorative imprint recalls the dictates of the Art Nouveau style, its origins date back to well, exactly to 1778, when the Potenziani erected a hunting lodge "out of door" to spend moments of leisure far from the walls of the Riminis. The villa lived its moment of maximum splendor in the early twentieth century, when personalities such as Benito Mussolini, Guglielmo Marconi and the geneticist Nazareno Strampelli assiduously frequented the court of prince Ludovico Spada Veralli Potenziani. Governor of Rome and a prominent politician, the prince soon transformed a rural residence, although already partly embellished with frescoes, artistic friezes and stuccos, in a sumptuous villa but at the same time so sober as to never be excessive. Architects, decorators, cabinetmakers were busy for years in carrying out the work. An example is the Salone delle Feste, admirable for the wooden ceiling, the work of the Nicoletti brothers, the ceiling temples of a room in which a cycle of Herculaneean representations and the "chinoiserie" frescoes of a congress hall, built in 1845.

The Salone delle Feste houses the Belle Epoque restaurant, which serves Mediterranean cuisine and a selection of national wines. The hotel's rooms are located on the first floor of the villa and have direct access to the garden, classic furnishings, damask fabrics and, in some cases, bathrooms with Jacuzzi. On the top floor is the imperial suite. Seminars and congresses can also be hosted in the former greenhouse space.