Sant'Antonio

Tivoli, near Rome, Italy

20 reviews
Overview

A former monastery in one of Europe’s most inspiring landscapes, just outside Rome. The house was built over a Roman villa, believed to have belonged to the poet Horace. Each room has a shuttered window opening onto the valley below, a famous waterwall and Tivoli itself.

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  • CotCot
  • Fire or StoveFire or Stove
  • Open SpaceOpen Space
  • Parking AvailableParking Available
  • BathBath
  • DishwasherDishwasher
  • MicrowaveMicrowave
  • ShowerShower
  • Washing MachineWashing Machine

Beds 4 Twin, 2 Double

Sleeps
12
4 nights from
£1176 equivalent to £24.50 per person, per night

‘The loveliest view in the world’: a place to fall in love with

The steep and terraced gardens, where olive and orange trees grow, overlook Tivoli’s famous cascade and lead to... a moment of discovery it would be unfair to spoil for you in advance. Frederick Searle bought the old monastery of Sant’Antonio near Tivoli in 1878, when he fell in love with it as a place from which to paint the great waterfall on the other side of the ravine. A visit today is equally enchanting. The little church at the top is dedicated to the Sant’Antonio of Padua and the simple rooms of the house look onto what has been described as the ‘loveliest view in the world’. Hints of a distant past appear in cells with mosaic floors, and in the kitchen, where on the inner wall is some ‘opus reticulatum’, a sign of Romans at work.

Roman origins, gently repaired

It is thrilling to open the old door in the house wall after passing through an arcaded loggia and down to the level of the fruitful, scented and beautiful terraced garden. The walls of a Roman villa, from about 60 BC and believed to have belonged to the poet Horace, survive up to the middle floor of the present house, itself begun in about 850 AD. Franciscan monks have lived here, and Popes. The final additions were made ‘as late’ as the 17th century. It was abandoned around 1870 and rescued by the Searles, who spent many years gently repairing it.

Sant’Antonio has descended to their great-great-grandson. Knowing of our involvement with Keats’ House in Rome, he asked us for help. With the greatest of pleasure, we are letting his house for him. As if Sant’Antonio itself were not enough, at Tivoli you can visit the Villa d’Este, with its incomparable fountains, and Hadrian’s Villa, the inspiration for so many British garden buildings. Lazio, with its hills and lakes, its castles, gardens and wines, its relics of Rome and Etrusca, is one of the most beautiful and least-known regions of Italy. And then of course there is the city of Rome, a short drive or train ride away.

The National Identification Code (CIN) for Sant'Antonio is IT058104B4CC4YNIJD

Floor Plan

Reviews

Map & local info

The panoramic views from the hills surrounding Rome are fabulously uplifting and energising. The vastness of the Eternal City spread below, perhaps a flash of sea on the horizon, conveys an incredible sense of power and spirituality. No wonder the landscape is dotted with so many temples, shrines, monasteries, castles and villas.

Just at the top of the ‘Valle Gaudente’, Sant’Antonio could not be more blessed. Within a few minutes’ drive, one can stroll around the most important Italian garden of the Renaissance at Villa d’Este, or one can explore the most important surviving Roman villa in the world, Villa Adriana. You will find the Romantic gardens of Villa Gregoriana, with its grottos, ruins and falls, at the feet of Tivoli’s acropolis.

You can follow a pilgrim’s route while enjoying the mountainous landscape. Not far from Sant’Antonio rises the Neoclassical shrine of Quintiliolo, dedicated to a XIII century icon of the Virgin and the Child. Pay a visit to Subiaco’s Benedictine monasteries of Santa Scolastica and San Benedetto to admire, among other things, the only full-length portrait of S. Francis painted during his lifetime. In the Subiaco area, enclosed in the mountains between Lazio and Abruzzo, the shrine of Santissima Trinità in the medieval hamlet of Vallepietra, with its Byzantine-inspired effigy of the Holy Trinity and its catacombs, attracts many visitors.

Spend a day or two exploring the picturesque little towns perched on the hilltops of the Aniene Valley. Arsoli, for instance, is renowned for its medieval Castello Massimo, Anticoli Corrado for its modern art museum in the Palazzo Baronale. Mandela, Roviano, Vicovaro and Sambuci boast their own fascinating castles, fortresses and churches. In the summer months these towns offer a full programme of events: food fairs, traditional music and games, usually after a saint’s day procession. In July, for instance, don’t miss the Palio Madama Margherita d’Austria (tournament among the town’s ancient neighbourhoods) held at Castel Madama, where you can experience life as it was during the Renaissance.

For a relaxing spa day, try Terme di Tivoli, a famous resort with mineral spring waters.

Read our guide to the Tivoli region, written by Landmark's Italy Manager Elena Manafredi.

Local's Guide to Tivoli

Find directions to Sant'Antonio

Clear directions

Places to visit nearby

Villa Adriana

Villa d’Este

Villa Gregoriana

Tivoli Gardens

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Opening hours
Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm


History

A medieval monastery on the site of a Roman villa

A medieval monastery grafted onto a Roman villa of the time of Caesar Augustus or before, rescued from abandon in 1879 by an Englishman newly returned to Europe from the West Indies. Add to these the well-founded belief that a frequent guest at this villa, if not one of its earliest owners, was the poet Horace; that across the ravine thunders the water of the Anio, with the temples of Vesta and the Sibyl poised above it; that all of these are on the outskirts of Tivoli, the Roman Tibur; and you are approaching something very near the heart of the civilisation that has moulded Europe for two millennia.

It is fitting that the revival of this place should have fallen to an Englishmen, because those two names, Horace and Tivoli, have a particular resonance for his countrymen. From the Middle Ages, English boys learned their reading and writing by means of Horace’s Odes and Satires, along with the works of his contemporary Virgil and other writers of the Augustan Age. Only in the late 20th century has academic education ceased to be built on these cornerstones.

Generations of Englishmen, therefore, absorbed not only Horace’s good sense and poetry but also his geography in their earliest years. Not all left it thankfully behind with their schooldays. For many, the name of Tivoli conjured up associations like that of Holywood for a cinema-fed generation. This became all the more so from the 17th century, when Englishmen first began to visit Italy in large numbers, and to carry its influence home in the most direct manner, in their paintings and their buildings and their gardens. The dramatic landscape of Tivoli appealed strongly to painters, notably the great French creators of an ideal Classical world, Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet. Their English imitators, such as Richard Wilson, followed them there. Those who could not paint, such as the writer Joseph Addison, sought the places from which the best paintings might be composed, and then murmured to themselves of “Tivoli’s delightful shades, and Anio rolling in cascades”.

Frederick Searle was seeking a place to sketch the waterfall when he first saw Sant’Antonio and was told that this was “la casa di Orazio”. Not only did he make it his own home, but he encouraged scholars and archaeologists to share his discoveries. This role was carried on by his daughter Georgina, and her husband George Hallam, and then by her great-niece, Lucy d'Ailhaud Brisis. In this generation it has been Count Roger de Brisis who has taken on the care of Sant’Antonio and, with Landmark’s help, has made it possible for you to stay here.

To read the full history album for Sant'Antonio please click here.

Restoration

Only minor repairs needed

The structure of Sant’Antonio has been maintained in a satisfactory state since Frederick Searle died a century ago, and modernised successively since 1945, so works in anticipation of its use by the Landmark Trust have been limited to minor repairs to the fabric and rooms, and small improvements in the kitchen and the bathrooms, all carried out by Italian artisans.

The joinery of the ancient windows needed more attention, and the Landmark Trust’s architect John Bucknall set up a programme for minimum repairs which were carried out by Landmark’s craftsmen. The harmful effects of the road on the church are a constant worry and its long-term health has still to be assured.

It could be said that Sant’Antonio was already fairly close to the Landmark ideal before 1995, so the arrangement of the rooms has proceeded with a light touch. Both the Landmark Trust and the owners have a meticulous approach to furnishing, so interventions have been limited to beds, lighting and so forth, again using a combination of local and English skills.

The care of the garden remains in the hands of the owners.

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