Villa Rufolo

The Rufolo

A merchant family built it, and Boccaccio wrote about one of them

The villa was built about 1270 by Nicola Rufolo, one of the richest patricians of Ravello. The Rufolo family excelled in commerce, and a Landolfo Rufolo has been immortalized by Boccaccio in the Decameron.

Wagner

In 1880 Wagner imagined this garden as Klingsor's

The German opera composer Richard Wagner visited the villa in 1880. He imagined the setting as the garden of Klingsor in the second act of Parsifal. In commemoration, the lower garden hosts a Wagnerian concert every year.

A Scotsman

A Scotsman restored it around the middle of the 19th century

The villa passed by inheritance through several owners. Around the middle of the nineteenth century it was sold to the Scotsman Francis Neville Reid, who took care of a general restoration, resulting in today's layout. The initial layout dates from the 13th century.

Ravello

Ravello had 25,000 people in the 12th century and about 2,500 now

In the 12th century Ravello had some 25,000 inhabitants. After the Republic of Pisa destroyed the Duchy of Amalfi in 1137, a demographic and economic decline set in. Ravello now has approximately 2,500 inhabitants and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

782stairs above the town of Atrani, where Ravello sits

The festival

The Ravello Festival began in 1953 in honour of Wagner

The town has long drawn artists, musicians and writers, among them Boccaccio, Wagner, Grieg, M. C. Escher, Virginia Woolf, Greta Garbo and Gore Vidal. Every summer the Ravello Festival takes place. It began in 1953 in honour of Richard Wagner.