Villa Cimbrone

Much altered and extended in the early 20th century by Ernest William Beckett (later Lord Grimthorpe), the villa is today composed of many salvaged architectural elements from other parts of Italy and elsewhere; little of the original structure remains visible.

[1] It was visited by the historian Ferdinand Gregorovius, who described it thus in his Siciliana: Wanderings in Naples and Sicily (1861): Incomparable ... where the most beautiful flowers you can imagine flourished, coming from numerous plants of the South ... redesigned and enriched with countless ... ornamental features, small temples, pavilions, bronze and stone statues.

[3] and referring to the belvedere (known as the Terrazza dell'Infinito): While contemplating from those Armida's orchards, among the roses and the hydrangeas, that magic sea in which the blue colour of a very limpid sky is reflected, the wish of being able to fly comes out ...

Beckett died in London in 1917 and his body was brought to Villa Cimbrone to be buried at the base of the Temple of Bacchus in the gardens;[1] apt lines of Catullus are inscribed on the frieze:[citation needed] Quid solutis est beatius curis cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, desideratoque adquiescimus lecto?

Other visitors included D. H. Lawrence, Edward James, Diana Mosley, Henry Moore, T. S. Eliot, Jean Piaget, Winston Churchill and the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

[5] The villa was featured in the 1953 John Huston film Beat the Devil, in particular an extended scene of Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones romancing on the Terrazza dell'lnfinito.