It was around 1880 when Johanna Ringer married Heinrich Settari, a wealthy merchant of silk and porcelain. At the birth of each child, instead of a piece of jewelry, Johanna asked for a piece of mountain land as a gift. We wish we could hear this story every evening. Briol is part of that treasure. It’s like a sepia-toned photograph: olive green shutters, white duvets on wooden beds, porcelain pitchers and washbasins, a room for board games, whipped cream and red currant cake. The linens are air-dried, and on cooler evenings, guests find a hot water bottle waiting in their room. The original building, dating back to 1898, was renovated in 1929 following the principles of the Bauhaus movement by Hubert Lanzinger, an Austrian painter admired even by Klimt, who married the youngest of Heinrich and Johanna’s fifteen children—the one who inherited Briol. A hotel from another era, perched at 1,310 meters above sea level, among the meadows above Barbiano, preserving the aesthetics and atmosphere of the early 20th century. Still today, it can only be reached on foot, through the forest.

Words Meraviglia Paper. Photo Courtesy Briol.