Wing of a former monastery on the Aventine with cloister and garden

Through a peperino stone portal you enter a four-arched cloister, with a well in the centre and a potted lemon tree at each corner. It is the former monastery of a minor order, split up in the 1950s and now reunited as a single 410 m² home. The refectory, with its frescoed barrel vault, has become the dining room; the cells on the first floor are now bedrooms, four of them with a bathroom carved out of the old spaces.

The 600 m² walled kitchen garden is still planted with roses and aromatic herbs, and ends in a west-facing pergola. The kitchen fireplace, the library and the vaulted cellar complete an ensemble of rare coherence.

The restoration was overseen by the heritage authority: the services are new but invisible, heating is central and two parking spaces are carved out of the garden. Five bedrooms and four bathrooms.