Sem Benelli had a castle built with the royalties from his own plays, and ended up living in the gardener's cottage. In 1914 the playwright and poet bought a rocky spur above the Via Aurelia at Zoagli from a man known as Giovannino delle Gallerie, and handed the design to his friend Gian Giuseppe Mancini, a set designer and architect. In 1943 money troubles forced him to sell to the Milanese industrialist Costantino Lentati: Benelli stayed on in the garden outbuilding until his death in 1949.
What to see
The building is an exercise in eclecticism with a Neo-Medieval accent: exposed stone, brick, coloured marble set like inlay, and a tall central block that rises like a tower and holds the other volumes together. You can tell a set designer drew it: the castle is made to be looked at from a distance, from the road and from the sea, like a stage flat.
The site does the rest. The house grips a spur of rock above state road 1, the Aurelia, and commands the Gulf of Tigullio; the seaward front is the side worth slowing down for. This is not a medieval castle reworked over the centuries but a castle invented in the twentieth century, and that is exactly what makes it interesting: a piece of theatre built in stone by a man who lived off theatre.
Visiting
The castle stands along the Aurelia at Zoagli, between Rapallo and Chiavari; it is a private residence and no regular opening to the public is recorded, so plan on seeing it from the outside only. From the main road it appears suddenly, on a bend, and that is the best point to catch its profile; arriving at Zoagli by train, or walking down towards the shore, you find it again high above the coast, backlit.
Our editors' tip
Come by in the late afternoon, when the low light picks out the coloured marble and the stonework: at midday the building looks flat, almost grey. And read a few lines about Sem Benelli before you get there, because the sale of 1943 and the old age spent in the gardener's house change the way you look at that tower.