The abandoned villa in Italy where Edward VII's mistress, Alice Keppel liked to sun herself

Release time：2024-05-21 18:44:57 Source：Culture Capsule news portal

It's Queen Camilla's dream home – a sprawling palace on a sun-dappled hill in Tuscany with breathtaking views over the city of Florence.

Camilla spent her childhood holidays here with her brother Mark and sister Annabel, playing hide and seek in the enormous frescoed rooms, and running free in the spacious grounds dotted with ancient statues.

The Villa dell'Ombrellino, once occupied by the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in the 16th century, was built in 1372.

It was bought a hundred years ago with cash King Edward VII bequeathed his mistress Alice Keppel – Camilla's great-grandmother – and during Alice's lifetime the place became a magnet for passing European royalty.

Edward VII bought Villa dell'Ombrellino - with cash - for his mistress, Alice Keppel

A portrait of Alice Keppel, wife of George Keppel. Alice was Camilla's great-grandmother

Edward VII, centre, is pictured during a stay at Rufford House near Doncaster as a guest of Lady Savile in 1906. The King's mistress, Alice Keppel is standing fourth from left

Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei once occupied the house, which overlooks Florence

Three-hour lunches on the terrace were served by waves of servants, champagne corks popped and the gossip was only ever about people with a title.

'Ombrellino served Mrs Keppel's status fantasies,' recalled a friend – and indeed her life in this Italian paradise was nothing short of a royal court in exile.

Now, the vast building lies empty and forlorn, its gates rusting and its paint peeling – a white elephant of a palace which nobody wants. Nobody has lived there for 20 years, and nobody wants to.

It's on the market – and yours for a mere £23 million.

To this day, Camilla rues the fact her mother Rosalind Shand took the decision to sell it in 1972 – and on a visit to Florence a few years ago she told the Daily Mail's Rebecca English, 'It's such a tragedy. I feel I should start a campaign to buy it back.”'

This started a flurry of gossip in the ancient Italian city that Camilla was leaning on her husband Charles to add Ombrellino to his bulging property portfolio.

But it seems that Charles didn't cough up. And from that day to this, the place has remained forlorn and abandoned.

'Nobody wants to buy Villa dell'Ombrellino,' said a neighbour this week on the Bellosguardo hill where the property lies. 'The property is a commercial disaster. Nobody wants to live there.

'Downstairs there are huge rooms with high ceilings while upstairs are smaller rooms but fewer – two sitting rooms for every bedroom – and the whole thing is very impractical.'

The neighbour went on: 'The gardens were designed by the famous Cecil Pinsent and contained a collection of trees from all over the world. 

'There were azaleas in huge terracotta pots – but the trees are gone and vandals destroyed the vases of azaleas.

'When Mrs Shand sold the property the building was leased to the famous Gran Caffè Doney, where the rich and famous used to gather in Florence, but it never moved there. 

'Eventually the building was taken over by Deutsche Bank and the rooms were sublet as office space to various companies including Brooks Brothers. 

'They hosted some conferences, events and receptions there – but eventually they shut the place up and it's remained empty for over 20 years.'

Camilla, on a visit to Florence a few years ago, bemoaned its loss: 'It's such a tragedy. I feel I should start a campaign to buy it back'

A view of the beautiful Tuscan landscape

After Alice Keppel's 1947 death the house was inherited by her second daughter Violet Trefusis, whose lesbian elopement with the writer Vita Sackville-West shocked London society in the 1920s and forced Mrs Keppel – already on the outs with the royal court because the current king, George V, disapproved of her – to move away from Britain.

Nonetheless Alice maintained a permanent suite at The Ritz hotel in London, with abundant adjacent staff quarters, and moved there permanently during the war. 

It's said locally that Ombrellino was used for the torture of prisoners by the Germans after Italy's surrender in September 1943 and before August 1944, when Florence was liberated.

Violet Trefusis, second daughter of Alice Keppel, was famous as a writer and as lover of author and garden designer Vita Sackville-West

If it was, Mrs Keppel never knew. 

She returned to Ombrellino in 1946 and it was there, a year later, that she died of cirrhosis of the liver. 

Her long-suffering husband George who'd endured his wife's many money-spinning infidelities – quite apart from her long affair with the king - was so heartbroken he died there two months later.

So the house has a history. And now it's all yours, for just £23 million.

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