Palazzo d'Afflitto in Ravello was built in the 1000s, destroyed by Pisa and rebuilt in the 1500s. In 1893, Pantaleone Caruso rented five rooms and opened a boarding house. Today it is the Belmond Hotel Caruso.
In this story · 7 sections
Belmond Hotel Caruso is located in Ravello, the mountain village above Amalfi, in a palace built in the 11th century by the patrician family d'Afflitto. The family called the house Palazzo d'Afflitto, the afflicted, referring partly to a shipwreck during a journey to Constantinople, and partly to a martyr in the family. The story of how the palace became one of the Amalfi Coast's most famous hotels spans almost a thousand years.
Belmond Hotel Caruso
Hotel · Ravello
© OpenStreetMap contributors · OpenFreeMap
- Building
- Palazzo d'Afflitto, 11th century, rebuilt from the 16th century
- Guesthouse since
- 1893 (Pensione Belvedere)
- Founders
- Pantaleone Caruso and Emilia Cicalese
- Current owner
- Belmond (acquired by Orient-Express in 2005)
- Frescoes
- 18th century, among the earliest images of Ravello
The 11th-century Palazzo d'Afflitto, a guesthouse since 1893, with hanging gardens overlooking the sea.
01From ruin to palace
The original palace was largely destroyed, together with most of Ravello and the neighbouring port of Amalfi, by the Republic of Pisa, a rival for the sea routes of the Mediterranean. The ruins lay abandoned until the mid-16th century, when rebuilding began. Most of what is today called the original palace dates from work carried out between then and the 17th century.
The portal is believed to have belonged to the church of Sant'Eustachio in Pontone from the second half of the 12th century. A document from 1570 shows that the d'Afflitto family, who owned the church, moved it here. The lower part has a pair of lions, similar to those at Salerno Cathedral, and the upper part is built from a split arch from a pulpit, with two prophets in a style associated with the Caserta school, 1200–1220.
02Pensione Belvedere, 1893
In 1893, the hotelier and winegrower Pantaleone Caruso and his wife Emilia Cicalese rented five rooms in a wing of the palace and opened Pensione Belvedere, named after the view of the sea from the hanging gardens. Caruso covered the open courtyard inside the entrance and installed the two 13th-century lions that still guard the entrance, as well as the Roman columns on the staircase leading up to the hall.
Insider tipThe cathedral and Villa Rufolo are within walking distance
During the 20th century, the hotel welcomed guests such as Virginia Woolf, Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart and Jacqueline Kennedy. Pantaleone's sons Paolo and Gino carried it forward. In 2005, Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. bought the property, and in March 2014 the group changed its name to Belmond.
03The frescoes beneath the limewash
When the rooms and communal areas were renovated, shadows were spotted beneath the whitewashed vaults. The heritage authority in Salerno was able to show that there were frescoes from the 1700s underneath: floral motifs, garlands, birds and butterflies around arcadian landscapes. The ceiling in the hall is particularly interesting, with two griffins guarding four frescoes of Ravello. They are probably the earliest paintings of the village, older than anything produced by foreign painters in the mid-1800s. The most recent restoration was led by Professor Antonio Forcellino, who had previously restored Michelangelo's Moses on Pope Julius II's tomb.
The house has four types of vault: barrel vaults, groin vaults, domical vaults and cloister vaults. Some are built using a local technique where dry branches were laid in the shape of the vault and covered with wet earth, whereupon a mass of small stones, lapillus, was packed in place until it held its form. The palace also contains a small family chapel with a baroque stone altar and stucco reliefs of praying saints.
04Archaeology next door
Excavations next to the hotel have revealed the foundations of medieval walls from houses or a palace inside the defensive wall that surrounded Ravello's acropolis, where the noble families built their palaces. The foundations may have been a wing of the original Palazzo d'Afflitto. During the excavation, a room believed to have been a bathroom with Arabic influence was also found, three metres square and four metres high, with a domed vault in eight sections featuring frescoes of palms and dogs.
05Ravello and its surroundings
The hotel is located near the heart of Ravello, with the cathedral, Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone within walking distance. Ravello was once one of the wealthiest towns in the maritime republic of Amalfi, and the palaces from that era – d'Afflitto, Rufolo, Confalone and Della Marra – still form the backbone of the village. In summer, the Ravello Festival is held, which has existed since 1953.
06More to read
More grand hotels in Italy: Rome's grand hotels and Villa d'Este on Lake Como. All our city guides and destinations can be found at metromode.co.
