My first stop was Vocabolo Moscatelli, a 12th-century monastery turned boutique design hotel in northern Umbria. The founders, Frederik Kubierschky and Catharina Lütjens, met while working in Zurich, and, over an extensive restoration with architect Jacopo Venerosi Pesciolini, they preserved the structure’s stone fireplaces, exposed beams, and heavy wood lintels while introducing a more playful strain of contemporary Italian design. A hot pink Paola Lenti sofa interrupts the monastic neutrals in my suite.
Meditation takes the form of a dip in the travertine pool or a massage in the former chapel. During an early-evening tasting, I drink an earthy Sagrantino from Paolo Bea, the Umbrian producer who cultivated a devoted following long before the current mania for natural wine. (There is a local saying that when a pope dies, one opens a bottle of Bea.) The wine is paired with tangy Japanese medlar fruit dusted with cocoa nibs.
Across the Tyrrhenian Sea on the island of Ischia, L’Albergo del Monastero occupies a convent first established by cloistered Clarisse nuns within the Aragonese Castle. The rocky citadel has served as a fortress, prison, convent, artists’ refuge, and, now, an elegant 20-room hotel. Its white limestone vaults, original façade, and enclosed garden have been soberly preserved by siblings Cristina and Nicola Mattera, whose family history is entwined with the castle. They grew up here, as did their father, the artist Gabriele Mattera, who invited other artists to visit him there and exhibit their work on the premises. The nuns may have lived in seclusion, but the Matteras have turned the property outward, hosting a lively cultural program through their foundation. The restaurant, too, asks for a small act of surrender: A tasting menu is served according to the chef’s choices. At breakfast, garden figs, rustic pastries, and ribbons of pink tuna crudo are arranged beneath the pale stone arches. It is an invitation to contemplation, even as vacationers spread colorful towels across the rocks below.
A crypt inside the Aragonese Castle at L’Albergo del Monastero.
Marco Albanelli/Courtesy of Castello Aragonese d’Ischia.
