Farm holidays the Topaia Mugello Florence Tuscany, farm holidays in Tuscany

A long and careful renovation has managed to bring new life to the farm

Brief history

The heart of the farmstead is Villa La Topaia. In medieval times (13th-14th century) this manor house was the only building on the farm. Only much later, in the 19th century, this ancient core was supplemented with a large farmhouse and later a cowshed, a barn and a loggia.

The long and careful renovation carried out by the present owners over the past two decades has managed to bring new life to the farm, adapting for tourist accommodation those buildings which were no longer required by modern farming standards. As the new accommodation units were completed, they were named after their former use to preserve their memory: therefore you will find Loggia 1, Loggia 2, Stalla...

Dino Campana e Sibilla Aleramo At Villa La Topaia, the present hospitality business is ennobled by an outstanding literary tradition: La Topaia is in fact known in literary circles for having provided the scene for the budding love story between novelist Sibilla Aleramo (pen name of Rina Faccio, 1876-1960) and Dino Campana (1885-1932), one of the most intriguing Italian poets of the early 20th century, author of “Canti Orfici”.

At the time of their affair, in the summer of 1916, Sibilla Aleramo was staying at Villa La Topaia as a guest of Maria and Julien Luchaire (1876-1958), a French intellectual and politician who some years earlier had founded the French Institute of Florence, to this day one of the leading French institutions in Italy.

A “mad” poet with a solitary and wayward personality, a social outcast who died a lunatic in the reclusion of an asylum, Dino Campana was born at Marradi, further up the Tuscan Apennines from here, and he had a deeply conflictual relashionship with Mugello: yet this land, and its nature, forged his character and left striking evidence in his writings: “…there is a beautiful vegetation, the deep blue of the sky meets the Tuscan light every morning and evening along the mountain ridges. The river is very beautiful…” The Comunità Montana del Mugello, our local tourist and agricoltural board, has published an interesting booklet called “A piedi con Dino Campana” (On foot with Dino Campana), describing a number of walking trails in the area based on Campana's diaries and letters.

The passionate yet painful love story between Campana and Aleramo was also portrayed a few years ago in the feature film “Un viaggio chiamato amore“ (internationally released as “A Journey Called Love”) directed by Michele Placido and starring Stefano Accorsi and Laura Morante, whose screenplay was based on the correspondence between the two protagonists of the events.

Here are some short excerpts from the letters that Sibilla Aleramo addressed to Dino Campana from Villa La Topaia:

La Topaia Borgo San Lorenzo Monday [July 24th 1916]
“...and the whole Mugello is new to me. Here I am lodged in a large, empty country house. The hosts have left it all to myself, while they are away, for two weeks.“

[Villa La Topaia, Borgo S. Lorenzo] Wednesday evening [August 1916]
“... This is the last evening that I spend alone at La Topaia. (Those bloody Luchaires, had I known they were to be this late in coming back!... But they should not be despised: for without this holiday spent at their place, who knows when you and I would ever have met)...“

Farm Holidays in Mugello, Tuscany

Brief history