Italia Capri 6 Anacapri Villa San Michele2

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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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The Villa San Michele was built around the turn
of the 19th century on the Isle of Capri, in
Anacapri, by the Swedish physician and
author Axel Munthe. In his later years, he wrote
his haunting youthful memoir The Story of San
Michele, which describes how he first discovered
the island and built the villa
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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. The design of the garden still
follows Munthes inten-tions. Everywhere pots,
amphoras and various objets dart are to be
seen like the cosmatesque table. Munthe found it
in a small town near Palermo where it was used as
a laundry table. The so-called Loggia delle
Sculture opens out onto the delightful view of
the bowers.
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In the middle of the loggia one finds an
exquisite mosaic table, sustained by graceful
spiral columns, also decorated by mosaic
interlacings. This work is attributed to the
Cosmati, Roman marble workers, who carried out
marble work as far back as the 12th century
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Artemis. Diana, Greek/Roman 1st century BC. From
a house in Pompeii 1760 Replica of sculpture of
the Museo Archeologico (Naples) 
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Artemis
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Bacchus. Dionysus from Villa dei Papiri in
Herculaneum. Greek, 4th century BC
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Bacchus/Dionysus Replica of sculpture of the
Museo Archeologico (Naples) 
Resting Hermes From the Villa of the Papyri in
Herculaneum. The original in Museo Archeologico
Nazionale di Napoli
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Bronze copy of The Resting Mercury, a gift from
the city of Naples to Axel Munthe in gratitude
for his volunteer work during the 1884 cholera
epidemic
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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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Colonnaded pergola covered in Chinese wisteria
vines overlooking the Bay of Naples. Of this
glorious space, Axel Munthe wrote, The soul
needs more space than the body
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Bust of Axel Munthe
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The galleria
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Copy of the statue of Putto with Dolphin by
Andrea del Verrocchio. Around 1478 he finished a
Winged Cherubim with Dolphin, today housed in
Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze, and originally
intended for a fountain in the Medici villa of
Careggi
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Garden Roman sarcophagus of the Antonine period
with tritons and nereids
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Roman art
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The Tyrrhenian Sea
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Stairway to the Chapel Loggia
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Overlooking Capri harbor from the villa San
Michele
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From the villa, the view over the Gulf of
Naples is unforgettable
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Tom and Fellow, the beloved dogs of Swedens
Queen Victoria, are buried nearby with their
names carved on simple stones
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On the upper part of the garden sits the restored
medieval Chapel of San Michele and part of a
Roman ruin with frescoes in Pompeian red
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The surrounding gardens are lush
with Mediterranean flora, including camelias,
hydrangeas, beautiful rose bushes, and pine and
cypress trees. This is encircled by a white,
trellis-covered colonnade, characteristic of the
island's villas
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With the exception of a few sporadic absences,
Munthe lived on Capri for more than 56 years. His
love of the island coincided with the growing
popularity of Capri and the arrival of rich and
famous travelers from all over the world. Today
his villa is, together with the Grotta Azzurra,
the most visited place on the whole of Capri
Marble Etruscan Sphinx
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Egyptian Sphinx in red granite, which dates back
to the 13th century BC. The red granite figure
depicting a woman's head on a lion's body dates
from the time of Ramses II but no one is sure of
its exact origins
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Located at the bottom of the porch of the chapel,
it dates back to the reign of Ramsete II in the
13th century BC. Everything suggests it comes
from the Italian peninsula, but it is not clear
how Axel Munthe had it. In The Story of San
Michele he said to have found it in the country
where he rushed in the morning after a
premonitory dream "Everything that happened is
too strange and fantastic to be translated into
written words, and then you would not believe me
if I tried to do it. I do not know where the
dream ends and where the reality was at stake.
Get the great granite sphinx, who is squatting on
the parapet of the chapel of St. Michael, but you
will ask in vain, the Sphinx has kept his secret
for 5000 years, the Sphinx will keep
mine. Before the Egyptian Sphinx was in its
present position, the Etruscan Sphinx was later
replaced on the terrace beside the entrance of
the chapel. The choice of the Sphinx as a symbol
of the Villa could have been inspired by the
German poet Jean Paul, much loved by Munthe, who
likened Capri Island to a sphinx
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Touch the sphinx and make a wish ( it was reputed
to grant the wishes of those who touched its
flank with their left hand)
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Saint Michael
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On the upper part of the garden sits the restored
medieval Chapel of San Michele
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Salvatore Federico 1973
Today, Villa San Michele is a museum open to the
public and in the summer season hosts a music
festival, the Concerti al Tramonto (Concerts at
Sunset)
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Salvatore Federico 1973
Chapel of San Michele
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Archangel Michael, wooden sculpture by Neapolitan
School
The white chapel dedicated to the archangel of
the same name gives the title to the entire
complex of St. Michael. It is situated on the
ruins of a building dating back to the X century
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The Olivetum, a pavilion set among olive trees,
which houses a permanent ornithological display,
a bird and nature museum, where visitors can
learn about the local flora and fauna. The
exhibits document the thousands of migratory
birds who rest on Capri during their grueling
journey from Africa to Northern Europe. Munthe
led a one-man crusade to ban the ancient practice
of commercial quail hunting on the island. He
purchased the prime capture ground Mount
Barbarossa and the castle that stands upon it to
aid in stopping the practice
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The blue-tinted lizard (Lacerta viridens
faraglionesis) or the blue lizard of the
Faraglioni di Capri, (podarcis sicula
coerulea) is endemic to Scopolo  faraglione and
can be found only there
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Cineraria maritima Flowering
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Garden Walkway
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Polygala myrtifolia (Sweet Pea Shrub)
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Polygala myrtifolia (Sweet Pea Shrub)
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Chamaerops humilis arborescens palm
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Replica of marble relief sculpture in Museo
Archeologico (Naples)  Roman copy of an earlier
Greek Helenistic original known as Alcibiades and
Etere (Apollo and three nymphs)
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The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe was first
published in 1929 and became a bestseller in
several languages
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Souvenirs and Gifts from Villa San Michele
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Replica of Pompeian tripod with fauns of the
Museo Archeologico (Naples) 
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Replica of Resting Hermes from the Villa of the
Papyri in Herculaneum
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Text Internet Pictures Sanda Foisoreanu
Gabriela Cristescu
Internet All  copyrights  belong to their
 respective owners Presentation Sanda
Foisoreanu
2018
Sound Ottorino Respighi - Toccata for
Piano and Orchestra, P.156 (1928)- Fragment