Villa Cimbrone and the Terrace of Infinity, Ravello: visitor guide

In 1904, British banker Ernest William Beckett purchased a neglected estate on the rocky Ravello promontory known as Cimbronium, transforming it into an enclave that would eventually host Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, and Greta Garbo. The site's history spans back to the 11th century under the ownership of the noble Accongiogioco family. It later passed to the Fusco family, recorded in 1291 as owning the local church of S. Angelo de Cimbrone, and subsequently to the monastery of Santa Chiara. By the late 19th century, it belonged to the Amici family of Atrani. Following a visit by historian Ferdinand Gregorovius in 1861, the property was comprehensively reinvented by Beckett and Nicola Mansi, a local tailor, barber, and builder. The Vuilleumier family acquired the estate in the 1970s, turning the main residence into a five-star hotel, while a 1990s restoration by Giuseppe Del Pizzo, Alberto White, and Giovanna White secured its structural legacy.

What to see

Very little of the original medieval structure remains visible. The current villa is a composite of salvaged architectural elements from across Italy and abroad, combining mock-Gothic, Moorish, and Venetian styles. Above the old entrance gate, the papal arms of Cardinal Della Rovere mark the monastic period. The sprawling gardens mediate between wild English botanical traditions and structured Italian landscaping, shaped in part by advice from author Vita Sackville-West. The grounds feature a cloister, battlements, stone and bronze statues, pavilions, and caves. Beckett's daughter, Lucy, was a keen horticulturist here, breeding the "Rose of Ravello" in the 1930s. Ernest Beckett himself, who died in London in 1917, is buried at the base of the gardens' Temple of Bacchus, beneath a frieze inscribed with lines from Catullus. The estate culminates at the Terrazza dell'Infinito (Terrace of Infinity), a belvedere dropping sheer to the Gulf of Salerno. It is lined with marble busts that Gregorovius once described as "horrible" up close, yet appealing from afar. The grounds attracted members of the Bloomsbury Group, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, and Henry Moore, while a plaque from 1938 specifically commemorates the visits of actress Greta Garbo and conductor Leopold Stokowski.

Visiting

The estate and its park sit within a pedestrian zone, accessed via a stepped, panoramic pathway. While the hotel facilities, which include a private helipad, are reserved for guests, the gardens remain open to the public year-round for an admission fee. Visitors walking the grounds will recognize the terrace from John Huston's 1953 film *Beat the Devil*, where Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones filmed an extended romance scene, as well as a brief appearance in Christopher Nolan's 2020 film *Tenet*.

Our editors' tip

Take inspiration from American writer Gore Vidal, who resided at the nearby La Rondinaia (a house built by Lucy Beckett) from 1972 to 2004. In 1976, he noted that the ultimate time to stand on the belvedere is on a bright winter's day, when the vividly blue sea and sky merge so completely that it becomes impossible to tell one from the other.

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