The villa that now houses the conservatory carries the name of the man who lived in it, not of the man who had it built. The commission came from Tommaso di Savoia, who gave the design to Augusto Ghidini, and the work was finished in 1869; the name that stuck to the house is instead that of the marquis Sanfelice di Monteforte, prince of Viggiano in 1891. It stands just outside the old town, on via Gramsci, in a strip of the village that has since filled up with public facilities: the sports ground and a swimming centre are its immediate neighbours.
What to see
The building belongs to the last decades of the nineteenth century, and in Viggiano that makes it an outsider: an aristocratic commission in a village that after the earthquake of 1857 had rebuilt itself on its earlier street plan, in stone houses of one or two storeys. The municipality restored it and then gave it a use that has far more to do with the place than a marquis's summer residence ever did.
Inside are the Gesualdo da Venosa conservatory and the Scuola dell'Arpa Popolare Viggianese, the school of the local folk harp. That is not a decorative detail: since the eighteenth century Viggiano has turned out harp players and harp makers who left for Naples and then for half the world, and the Salvi family, behind one of the largest harp manufacturers anywhere, has its roots here.
Visiting
The villa is a working building, not a museum: you get inside when there are open lessons, recitals or concerts, so it is worth checking the conservatory's calendar before you walk up. From the street the nineteenth-century layout still reads clearly, and the front on via Gramsci is the part to look at first.
Our editors' tip
Come in the first days of August, when Viggiano holds its Rassegna dell'Arpa viggianese: that is the week when the school inside the villa stops being words on a plaque and can actually be heard. And if you want the oldest harps in town, look for them in the old centre, carved on the doorways of the houses and on the keystones of the arches, dated between 1858 and 1882.