Largo del Nazareno, a charming cobblestoned triangle tucked away in the heart of Rome’s busiest neighborhood, isn’t the first place you might expect to find one of the city’s most stylish design hotels. Walk a few minutes to the north, and you’ll be thronged by tourists ascending the Spanish Steps. Walk a few minutes to the south—or rather, bob and weave your way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds if you’re there in the peak summer season—and you’ll find yourself smack bang in front of the Trevi Fountain. Wander along the Via del Nazareno, however, and you might just catch your eye on the discreet open door under the imposing stone archway to a 16th-century palazzo. Step inside, and a hush falls: You’ve found Palazzo Talìa.
This historic building—which was, most recently, a prestigious school for the children of Roman nobility, before being purchased by the Federici property group and undergoing a three-year renovation—has plenty of the deceptive Renaissance architectural magic you might expect: appearing fortress-like from the outside, but opening up to reveal an expansive, leafy courtyard and towering corridors topped with frescoed ceilings for you to swan down and pretend you’re an Italian artistocratic for the afternoon. But that’s where the old-world feeling ends. Here, the cobwebs have been forcefully blown away thanks to a thoughtful contemporary refresh of its public spaces by the design firm overseen by Luca Guadagnino, the Oscar-nominated Italian director behind Call Me By Your Name and Challengers.
Yes, somewhere between his prolific career as a director—Guadagnino has released seven films over the course of the last 11 years—the maverick aesthete has also established a successful interior design practice, Studiolucaguadagnino, working on a handful of private homes as well as curating a knockout exhibition for the 2024 edition of the Homo Faber design fair in Venice. Fans of his movies won’t struggle to understand the appeal of living in a world of Guadagnino’s creation: who can forget the cozy charm of the northern Italian country estate at the heart of Call Me By Your Name, or the impossibly chic Pantelleria villa where Tilda Swinton’s Bowie-style rockstar holidays in A Bigger Splash. (Real Luca-heads will also remember the ravishing interiors of 2009’s I Am Love: with Milan’s Villa Necchi Campiglio as the film’s primary backdrop, you could argue it was partially responsible for the fervid renewal of interest in Italian rationalism and the work of Piero Portaluppi over the past decade or so.)
The results are extraordinary. Upon stepping into the central atrium, your eye travels immediately to the right, where the hotel lobby—in a typical clash of old and new, Gae Aulenti chairs are placed behind the reception desk, which sits directly beneath a colossal Murano chandelier—leads you through to a communal area featuring a heart-stoppingly gorgeous low-slung, double-side lounge sofa in a delicious shade of sage green velvet. Head up the sweeping staircase to the first floor piano nobile, and you’ll be following the trail of a monumental carpet—custom designed by the Irish architect Nigel Peake, it’s a riot of mid-century patterns in shades of blue, burgundy, and pink—that serves as the hotel’s design centerpiece, extending all the way down a dramatic corridor lined with ancient Roman busts surrounded by geometric, Carlo Scarpa-esque light fixtures.
Continue up the corridor, and you’ll find yourself in the cavernous Magna Hall, where the former school held its morning assemblies under 18th-century frescoes, now transformed into one of the city’s most dazzling event spaces thanks to a suite of powder pink armchairs designed by Guadagnino’s studio and another kaleidoscopic circular rug by Peake. Perhaps nobody has put it better than the hotel’s founder, the real estate developer Elia Federici: the overall effect is “theatrical and unbridled.” I would also add: entirely delightful.
Though when I visited in the summer, following an early morning flight from London, my first port of call was my bedroom—and it’s there that the vibe swerves from operatic to intimate. (The hotel’s 25 individually decorated rooms and suites were overseen by Mia Home Design Gallery and Laura Feroldi Studio, and feature a crisp, pared-back aesthetic inspired by the flaneurs and flaneuses of Rome’s past.) My bright, airy room overlooking the central courtyard, with its wrought iron canopy bed, sculptural corner sofa, and sleek walnut cabinet—topped with an Alessi plissé kettle and an espresso machine, naturally—was as tranquil as it comes.
Opening the windows to invite the sound of birdsong and gazing across the tropical palms and banana trees scattered across the courtyard below, it was hard to imagine (well, apart from the occasional muffled blast of a distant car horn) that I was just steps away from some of the city’s most hectic streets.
The fact that the hotel’s owners are Roman through and through—Federici’s daughter Angelica and son Fortunato are also closely involved in the project’s day-to-day—allows it to offer experiences that run deeper than the typical tourist trail, opening doors across the Eternal City that might otherwise remain firmly under lock and key. To wit, on a sunny morning, I was whisked away in a Mercedes tourer by Simone Amorico, the dapper CEO of Access Italy, a high-end destination management company whose clientele includes everyone from Oprahs to the Obamas. (As with all the best things in Italy, the company is very much a family affair: it was founded nearly two decades ago by Simone’s father Angelo, and his brother Marco runs the project alongside him.)
Our first port of call was a wander around—or, given the sprightly Simone’s pace and infectious enthusiasm, more of a bounce around—the maze of narrow pedestrianized streets that snake westwards from Campo de’ Fiori, popping our heads into a gloriously chaotic artist’s studio, before heading our way up to the Palatine Hill overlooking the Roman Forum, via winding streets not usually accessible to the public. After being secreted through an entryway into the 17th-century Franciscan monastery of San Bonaventura, situated among the ruins of a Claudian aqueduct, we were greeted by the artist and Franciscan friar Sidival Fila, and whisked up to his light-filled top-floor studio with its panoramic views that stretch from the Altare della Patria to the Coliseum. Up here, in his turret above the city, Fila spends his days suturing together patches of antique fabrics to then mounting them on canvases to create works of delicate beauty. (As a friar, all the proceeds from his work go to charity, of course.)
Finally, we paid a visit to the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, an oft-overlooked church on the Oppian Hill that had been locked up for the day—until, that is, Simone rapped his knuckles on the bolted doors and we were ushered in for a private audience in front of Michelangelo’s monumental sculpture of Moses, an eight-foot-high study in the artist’s anatomical precision and expressive power. As far as days exploring the city go, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Returning to the hotel after a long day traipsing the city’s streets, it was time for a little R&R. Sadly, I didn’t have time to check out the hotel’s small but perfectly formed wellness area—a subterranean sanctuary with a hydromassage pool surrounded by shimmering silver tiles, as well as a sauna and gym—but I certainly did have time for dinner at the restaurant. First, I headed for an aperitivo at the striking jewel box of a bar, the walls lined with textured blown-mirror panels that reflect the intricate grotteschi frescoes on the ceiling with a warped, sensual shimmer, for a platter of oysters and a mocktail inspired by (what else?) an opera aria.
Then, I was ushered through to the Tramae restaurant, where dishes inspired by some of the Federici’s favorite family meals—spaghettone alla Nerano or a classic veal Milanese on the bone, prepared with precision by the Sorrento-born Chef Marco Coppola—were served in a dining room that was both elegant and a little funky, with mirrored tiles on the far wall that lent it the feel of a glamorous 1980s discoteca.
After a dessert of tiramisù (again: what else?) I returned to my room, gliding through the cinematic first-floor corridor and past the Roman busts, entirely sated—and, I have to admit, beginning to feel like I was a character in a Guadagnino movie. Just like one of the director’s best films, Palazzo Talìa feels like an immediate classic.
