Corte della Maestà

Why it's in the collection

Because it is the loveliest getaway within easy reach of Rome — a bishop's house of a few rooms on a hilltop village reached by a footbridge — and because it keeps the old-world charm on purpose, with no television and no restaurant, and a fire, a piano and a fig tree instead.

• The old bishop's residence and seminary of Civita di Bagnoregio, the medieval hilltop village nicknamed the dying city after the earthquake of 1685, just over the Lazio line in south-western Umbria; independent house.
• Bought centuries later by an Italian psychologist and his wife and turned, in part, into a guesthouse of a handful of rooms, all with views: candlelit lanterns through the ivy-framed doorway, arched stone passageways, frescoed ceilings and an antique fireplace; a four-poster bed and a claw-foot iron tub in one room, an original fresco in another, a nineteenth-century theater headboard in a third.
• No TV and no air-conditioning by choice, fast wi-fi everywhere; breakfast under a massive fig tree, cakes baked each afternoon, local wine and cheese by candlelight in the bishop's old winery, a library and a cellar with an old Forneris piano; no official restaurant, but dinner, aperitivi or a cheese board by the fire on request.
• Three MICHELIN Keys in the 2025 selection; holds five-star standing.