A Tower in Tuscany by Beatrice Monti della Corte, Michael Cunningham

A glimpse inside a magical Tuscan villa—rustic yet urbane, old-world elegant yet bohemian, accessible yet personal—that nurtures the world’s finest literary talents.

In the hills above Florence, Santa Maddalena is like a secret garden where writers hone their craft and meet like-minded people. Paired with evocative images, these essays by 27 acclaimed authors invite readers to understand how the spirit of this restored villa, its owners and resident pets have inspired creative writing and creativity among so many.

Monti della Corte and her late husband, Gregor von Rezzori, transformed a ruin into the ultimate retreat where they would write, garden, and entertain friends and fellow artists—Pedro Almodóvar, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Hockney, Isabella Rossellini. This gracious weaving together of hospitality and creativity became the Santa Maddalena Foundation and writers’ fellowship program in 2000.

Beatrice Monti della Corte ran Galleria dell’Ariete, a trailblazing art gallery in Milan in the 1950s and is the founder of the Santa Maddalena Foundation, which administers the Premio Gregor von Rezzori and the eponymous writers’ retreat. François Halard is one of the most important interior and architectural photographers and has been published in Vogue, Apartamento, T Magazine, and Cabana, among others. Michael Cunningham is the author of A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, By Nightfall, The Snow Queen, and Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown.