Palazzo
Talìa

The location

Palazzo Talìa stands on Largo del Nazareno, a quiet square beside the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, whose angels are by Bernini and whose tower is by Borromini. The Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps are five minutes away, the metro about five hundred. Beneath the house runs the ancient Aqua Virgo, the same conduit that feeds the fountain. The façade stretches from Via del Tritone to the church, a building of several centuries, with Medici rings held in lions’ mouths above the door. Step closer and it smells of old stone and fresh flowers. Outside a school, inside a stage.

Backstory

Built in the sixteenth century and raised again after the Sack of Rome in 1527, the palace was first the home of the humanist Angelo Maria Colocci, then from 1630 the Nobile Collegio Nazareno, a school for the nobility through which passed popes, politicians and, later, the sons of Rossellini and Leone. It withstood Napoleon’s troops and the German occupation; the name came from Cardinal Tonti, titular archbishop of Nazareth. The school closed in 1999 and the building declined. The Roman construction family Federici bought it and, from 2021, restored it with the heritage office down to the last fresco. Elia Federici leads the project, his Cambridge-educated daughter Angelica runs food and art, his son Fortunato the group’s hotels. The public rooms they handed to the film director Luca Guadagnino. In 2024 the hotel opened.

Interior & architecture

Guadagnino’s studio, founded in 2017 and here in a hotel for the first time, designed the public rooms, the restaurant, the bar, the spa and the Terrace Suite. Colour is the leitmotif: a monumental blossom carpet by Nigel Peake runs from red to burgundy up the staircase into the Magna Hall, 248 square metres with eighteenth-century frescoes by Gaspare Serenari.

Add lamps made to order, a chandelier by the Venetian Simone Cenedese, tables of ceramicised lava stone by the Sicilian Rosario Parrinello. The 25 rooms were designed by Marianna Lubrano Lavadera of Mia Home Design Gallery and by Laura Feroldi under the watchwords Sprezzatura and Flâneur: wrought-iron canopy beds, round sofas in pink and burgundy, frescoed bathrooms by Pictalab, fabrics by Dedar, pieces by Cassina and Piet Hein Eek. Each room different.

A look inside

The house is a labyrinth of halls, corridors and courtyards: reception, the Magna Hall, the planted courtyard with palms where the bar and part of the restaurant sit. 26 rooms and suites, each cut differently, from Superior to the Talìa Suite, which can be joined to the Magna Hall into a whole piano nobile.

The Terrace Suite up top, furnished by Guadagnino himself, has peach wood, a fireplace, an alcove bed and a 66-square-metre terrace over the courtyard. In the rooms, marble basins, fabric-covered walls, photographs by Elisabetta Catalano from 1960s Rome.

Plus a coffee machine, a Bluetooth speaker and natural toiletries; much of the furniture made for the house, from the round sofas to lamps of mouth-blown glass.

Culinary

The restaurant Tramae, whose name means the weaving of threads, cooks the culinary Grand Tour: from Venice through Florence and Rome to Sorrento, the home town of head chef Marco Coppola. The menu sets Federici family recipes beside Roman classics, the Milanese veal shank, vitello tonnato, spaghetti alla Nerano, ravioli alla vaccinara. Coppola, born in Sorrento and arrived in Rome by way of France, England and the Caribbean, keeps the flavours deliberately clear.

The vegetables come from the family’s biodynamic farm Solaria outside the city, the wine from their own estate Villa Pepoli above the Baths of Caracalla, which once supplied the Vatican. Drinks are at the Bar della Musa, under ceiling frescoes modelled on the Domus Aurea, with champagne and a late hour. Clear flavours, good ingredients, no foam. That goes far in a city that takes eating seriously.

Wellness & Relaxation

The wellness area lies under a dome of green majolica tiles made by Spanish artisans, set against old marble, a bow to the Roman bath. Guadagnino’s studio designed this too. The heated pool stands ready through the day, the light kept low, the noise of the city left above.

There is a Turkish bath, a sauna, a steam room and a so-called icefall, plus two treatment rooms and a gym. Access is reserved for guests over thirteen, which protects the quiet. It is no grand hotel spa, more a private bath in the cellar of a palace. After a day on Roman cobbles, which test every sole, the way downstairs is the day’s most sensible decision.

Surrounding area

All around lies the Rome of postcards, which is the charm and the difficulty. Everyone knows the Trevi Fountain; fewer know that beneath it, in the Città dell’Acqua, you can visit the ancient water channels. A few steps on, Sant’Andrea delle Fratte holds a Borromini tower the tourist streams walk straight past. For art, the Galleria Doria Pamphilj is worth it, a private aristocratic palace with the Velázquez portrait of Innocent X, as is the Gallerie Sciarra, an Art Nouveau courtyard full of frescoes that almost nobody seeks out.

At the Spanish Steps the Keats-Shelley House recalls the English Romantics who wrote and died here; in Sant’Ignazio a painted sky fakes a dome that was never built. Contemporary work shows at Lorcan O’Neill and Gagosian, both within walking distance. For shopping, skip Via del Corso for Via Margutta, the street of painters, or the old workshops of the Tridente. Climb to the Pincio and the gardens of Villa Borghese for green. At the Antico Caffè Greco on Via dei Condotti, open since 1760, sat the travellers of the Grand Tour. Coffee at Sant’Eustachio, gelato at Giolitti, both without long debate over the city’s best.

Activities

• For art travellers. The Galleria Doria Pamphilj with its Velázquez, Palazzo Colonna on Saturday mornings, the Fondazione Memmo in Palazzo Ruspoli, plus contemporary galleries like Lorcan O’Neill and Gagosian.
• For antiquity lovers. The Trevi Fountain and the underground Città dell’Acqua with the channels of the Aqua Virgo, the Pantheon, the Baths of Caracalla near the hotel’s own vineyard.
• For architecture lovers. Sant’Andrea delle Fratte with Bernini’s angels and Borromini’s tower, the false dome of Sant’Ignazio, and the palazzo itself as a lesson in three centuries.
• For the appetite. Tramae and the Bar della Musa in the house, coffee at Sant’Eustachio, gelato at Giolitti, the Federici wine from Villa Pepoli above the Baths of Caracalla.
• For cinephiles. Guadagnino’s staged halls, the film history of the old college, a trip to the Cinecittà studios on the edge of town, where Fellini and Scorsese shot.

• For walkers. The triangle of the Tridente, the gardens of the Pincio above Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps in the first morning light, before they fill.
• For shoppers. The bespoke workshops and antiquarians of the Tridente, the galleries of Via Margutta, the luxury of Via dei Condotti, plus the small shops around Piazza di Spagna.
• For families. The Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo as a place to explore, gelato as a reward, the park of Villa Borghese with rowing boats and a zoo.
• For day-trippers. By train to Ostia Antica, the remarkably preserved ancient port, or to Tivoli for Villa d’Este and its famous fountains.

Details

• 26 rooms and suites, from Superior to the Talìa Suite; the largest: Talìa Suite (joinable with the Magna Hall), Terrace Suite (66 m² terrace, by Guadagnino), Suite.
• Restaurant Tramae (head chef Marco Coppola), Bar della Musa with champagne and Domus Aurea frescoes.
• Wellness area with heated indoor pool, Turkish bath, sauna, steam room and two treatment rooms (over-13s).
• Planted inner courtyard, the Magna Hall and other halls for private events.
• A member of Small Luxury Hotels, two Michelin Keys; family-run by the Federicis.
• Pets welcome for a fee; located on Largo del Nazareno, five minutes from the Trevi Fountain.