Italia Capri 5 Anacapri Villa San Michele1

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Villa San Michele
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Capri is an island located in the Tyrrhenian
Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south
side of the Gulf of Naples. The main
town, Capri, that is located on the island,
shares the name. It has been a resort since the
time of the Roman Republic
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Anacapri is located on the slopes of Mount Solaro
and has about 7,000 residents. The Ancient
Greek prefix ana- means "up" or "above",
signifying that Anacapri is located at a higher
elevation on the island than Capri (about 150 m
higher on average) 
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"My home shall be open for the sun and the wind
and the voices of the sea - like a Greek temple -
and light, light, light everywhere!" This is
how Axel Munthe described Villa San Michele, his
beloved home on the island of Capri. The Swedish
physician chose the most scenic spot on Capri to
build his villa, northwest of Anacapri and 327
meters above sea level on the spot where there
was once an Imperial Roman villa and a Medieval
chapel dedicated to Saint Michael. The story of
the villa's construction is told by Munthe in his
best-selling book, "The Story of San Michele",
one of the most widely translated books in the
world
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Cave canem mosaics ('Beware of the dog') were a
popular motif for the thresholds of Roman villas.
This is a replica of the mosaic floor at the
entrance to the House of the Tragic Poet in
Pompeii
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The dinning room On the floor at the foot of the
stairs is a copy of a mosaic from Pompeii showing
a skeleton with a wine carafe and water jug in
his hands. The meaning is that one should enjoy
life while one can, Death is always lurking round
the corner. Axel Munthe was obsessed all his life
long with thoughts of death, the giver of Life,
the slayer of Life, the beginning and the end
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The dinning room is filled with Renaissance
furniture from Bologna and 18th century Swedish
pewter vessels
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Munthe was an aesthete and connoisseur but had
simple tastes in food. His guests were mostly
offered peasant food spaghetti, vegetables and
Capri wine. He ate a lot of vegetables and
believed that no-one over 50 should eat meat
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The kitchen The stove with three hotplates in
iron, two boxes in wood and six doors in iron
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The kitchen
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The kitchen
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Detail
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The Atrium is a small courtyard in which Axel
Munthe put Roman tomb inscriptions and various
types of antique fragments  discovered among the
remains of Roman villas on Capri
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In the middle of the atrium (a closed courtyard
that, in ancient Rome, was the center of a house)
there is a roman well-mouth (puteal), cut from a
single block of white marble
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The Loggia here we can see a bronze copy of a
female figure belonging to the mysterious group
of sculptures called The Sibyls from
Herculaneum.
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The Sibyl from Herculaneum
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The bedroom (probably the most beautiful of the
rooms) is divided into two parts by an arcade and
a middle column, a recurrent architectural motif
of the Villa
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Axel Munthe was not only a physician but was a
best-selling author, sailor, musician,
naturalist, and philanthropist
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The 15-th century wrought-iron bed is Sicilian
and was presumably a camp bed Hypnos (4th century
BC), placed on a column beside Munthe's
fifteen-century Sicilian wrought-iron bed.
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Venus head
Axel Munthe dedicated much of his life to the
construction of the villa and surrounding
gardens. At the time, the countryside around
Capri was strewn with the remains of Roman
villas, pieces of marble columns and statuary
buried just underneath the top layer of soil. The
islanders who worked the land called these
finds Tiberius' things and began giving them to
the transplanted physician, who added them to his
collection of Roman, Etruscan, and Egyptian
artifacts accrued during his frequent travels
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Enamored with Capri from previous visits, it was
in June of 1895 that Axel Munthe purchased a tiny
house and vineyard in Anacapri from the carpenter
Vincenzo Alberino. It stood on the ruins of an
ancient Roman summer villa. At the same time,
Munthe bought adjoining land and a ruined chapel
from other sellers. On this ground, he built
Villa San Michele from scratch with his own money
and design, and the labor of his neighbors. At
the turn of the 19th Century, the village was
impoverished. A foreigner leading such a
construction project was unprecedented since
ancient times
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The Studio It was the place where Munthe
preferred to write
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You can see a Medusas head in white marble
hanging above the writing desk in the
studio which Munthe reputedly found on the seabed
off Palazzo a Mare even if possibly the mask
comes from the Temple of Venus and Roma, built by
Hadrian in 307 AD
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The "Studio" has a beautiful mosaic floor
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The Studio
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The Venetian Drawing room
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"Studio is divided by means of an African marble
column from the Venetian Drawing room
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The Venetian Drawing room, characterized by the
Rococo Venetian furnishing
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The Venetian Drawing room
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The Venetian Drawing room
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Axel Munthes friend Henry James described Villa
San Michele as, A creation of the most fantastic
beauty, poetry, and inutility I have ever seen
clustered together.
The Venetian Drawing room
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Leaving the Villa one passes under an open
gallery which then becomes a pergola and later
opens into a series of terraces with splendid
panoramic views 
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to be continued
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Text Internet Pictures Sanda Foisoreanu
Gabriela Cristescu
Internet All  copyrights  belong to their
 respective owners Presentation Sanda
Foisoreanu
Sound Peppino di Capri - Meravigliosa
Capri Capri in love
2018