The twin sensibilities of Castello di Reschio
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Donna Nencia Bolza’s first encounter with Castello di Reschio could have been written by Austen or a Brontë. A princess from Florence’s ancient Corsini family and a talented artist, she arrived at the 2,700-acre estate – a reverie encamped on the Tuscany-Umbria border – to paint frescoes at a house built in the shadow of a crumbling millennium-old castle. There she met and fell in love with Count Benedikt Bolza, an architect who had returned from practising in London to oversee the restoration of 50 dilapidated farmhouses and a tobacco warehouse discovered on the time-locked plot when it was bought in 1994 by his father, Count Antonio Bolza, and his wife Angelika. When Benedikt asked where she wanted to live when they married in 2000, his new wife chose the castle, despite its near state of ruin.
“It was strange because this whole area felt familiar somehow, and I was immediately at home in the castle,” she recalls as she sits with her twin sister, Fiona Corsini di San Giuliano, in the breakfast room of the castello, now a Three Key boutique hotel favoured by patrons such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Sir Anthony Hopkins. “It was only 10 years later, when looking through documents, that I realised why. One of the original owners had married into my family. I had, in fact, come home.”
Corsini di San Giuliano is equally well settled within these walls. She has residences in Sicily and Florence with her husband, Diego di San Giuliano, whose grandfather founded Ferragamo, but the sisters spend as much time together as possible and have raised their children, 11 in total, as one big family. When Bolza’s five-strong brood were old enough to attend secondary school, they lived with Corsini di San Giuliano at her home in Florence, returning to Reschio on the weekends.
“They call us aunty-mummy. They have two mothers,” says Bolza of what she refers to as their “football team”. Her dark hair flecked with silver is pinned loosely at her nape. She and her sister wear floor-skimming robes. They have an unassuming nobility, preferring artistic pursuits to the trappings of society. The entire clan becomes a theatre troupe with friends in the summer, staging a two-night show on the estate, and they live in tune with the seasons: Bolza, an expert on plants, is never happier than when she has her hands in the soil or her head in herbology books.
The early days of Reschio were equally bohemian. “All of my children were born here, and we lived mostly in this room because it had a fireplace,” says Bolza, looking around the space, its plaster walls bejewelled with gilt frames and handsome brass lamps. “It was quite unsafe back then. There were buckets everywhere, and the rain would pour through the roof.” Fiona came into the picture immediately, she says of her twin’s influence on her. “And living in such a house, looking after people in a remote corner of the world where we had so much time, it was inevitable that we would eventually dedicate this whole place to guesting. We lived here as a family for 10 years – the hotel [which opened in 2021] is the new kid.”
The sensibility at the castle is in many ways a reflection of the two women: they may share an aristocratic background, but you are greeted with the open embrace of a normal Italian family. The hotel, renovated by the count, and furnished with his own artisan-made furniture and lighting intertwined with antiques, is elegant but convivial.
The estate draws on the good food, good wine and natural setting that Italian poet Carducci described as the green heart of Italy. Guests can explore their creative side at myriad classes, from embroidery, foraging and flower arranging to horse riding (the family have their own stud and 40 Spanish dressage horses). Spending time in the twins’ company, one quickly realises that these creative pursuits are their own passions. “It is my chocolate box – they are all my favourite chocolates that I want to share with whoever wants to join me,” says Bolza.
Corsini di San Giuliano agrees. She is bringing Yogherello to the estate in November – a mind-, body- and spirit-restoring programme of yoga and watercolour painting for women, held over five days. Corsini di San Giuliano developed the idea for Yogherello during lockdown, when her son introduced her to the teacher Jen Warakomski, a New Yorker who pivoted from a career in fashion. She invited Warakomski to her home so the whole family could practise yoga. Mixing the discipline with watercolour painting (“acquerello”) was entirely natural to Corsini di San Giuliano, who is an accomplished artist. “It is a beautiful combination,” she says.
She carries a miniature painting kit inside her handbag at all times, which she whips out to record important moments. “In painting you record with all your senses. When I teach watercolour, I gift everyone a little book because it is not about how you draw or paint, it’s about being present in the moment,” she says. Her classes are thought-provoking but are also a lot of fun: there’s a sense of camaraderie and, like the yoga sessions, which take place inside the candle-lit chapel or beside the hotel’s lake, they encourage a release of the everyday tensions.
1“It’s funny that Umbria relates to the earth and terra d’ombra, the pigment, was first made here,” says Corsini di San Giuliano. “But it also means shadow.” The word has even more significance for the sisters – who see an essential twinship in the place. “Nencia has her house in the shadow and I have my house in the sun,” she continues.
Adds Bolza: “And we have our daughters: one is called Nerina, which means dark, and another Fiamma, which means flame. It is funny that our life as twins has galloped in very similar ways. Our pregnancies came at a similar time and, of course, we didn’t calculate that. A lot of our experiences have been very much like that.”
“I am here because of Nencia,” says Corsini di Giuliano. “She saved our lives at birth because we were very premature and we were put in the same incubator. Had we been put in different ones we would have probably perished. “We kept each other warm.”
Bolza finishes her twin’s sentences. “Sì, sì. It is a wonderful spell being a twin but a bit of a curse for the rest of the family – for our brother and our sister, and for our parents,” she says. “I have twins too and it can be annoying because they speak their own language; they consider the world just to themselves.”
The two say they almost morph into each other at times. “There is an osmotic exchange – even some of our friends notice it. They say the more we are together, the more we look alike.” But the sisters would not have it any other way and intend to indulge their creative passions together, both at Reschio and with their families, for many years to come. “Being a twin, it is a bit of a love affair,” Bolza reflects. “You are never alone.”
Rates at Hotel Castello di Reschio start from €925 per suite per night including breakfast for two. A two-night minimum stay applies. Yogherello takes place from 18 to 22 November, priced from €7,070, reschio.com
Comments