Palazzo Bontadosi

Palazzo Bontadosi Hotel & Spa is a 4 star resort that includes a restaurant, a Spa, a Bar and an Art Gallery. It’s a  combination of different souls: hospitality, taste, wellness and art ... 

The hotel has in total 12 rooms , 5 Superior, 3 Deluxe, 3 Junior Suites and 1 Suite with different fittings with attention to details and with the combination of ancient and modern styles. The chocolate brown and gold are instead the dominant theme of the restaurant "Aurum", a successful blend of creativity, tradition and elegance.

Housed in the medieval cellars, the Spa is divided into two different areas: the first called "AQUAM" has an Hammam, emotional showers, relax area and, the ancient water tank has become a small salty water pool with Dead Sea salts. The other area dedicated to massages  is composed by massage rooms with specific equipments for diagnostics and treatment, showers, and a Jacuzzi pool where you can enjoy wine therapy treatments. The oriental atmosphere is enhanced by Burmese, Thai and Moroccan antiques in red and brown shades.

The Hotel ground floor host the Art Gallery, a place specially designed to make art a moment of life with a wide range of exhibitions, openings, installations and performances.

Palazzo Bontadosi - HISTORY
Built in the early '400 has belonged until the sec. XIX to the noble family of the Bontadosi .

In the 500 the building was extended to be able to host the town covered market. At the end of the XVI century the Cardinal Clemente Bontadosi has set his residence in the building  by mutating the original structure.

The spaces of the market were closed to create private rooms on the ground floor and the central staircase, characterized by original late Renaissance features, was built.

On the ground floor the Cardinal made his studio decorated with grotesques, typical of the Renaissance, that still perfectly preserved. The vault of this studio was decorated in tempera in the XVII century. At the end of the XIX century the building was acquired by the Langeli family ( a family of papal chemists and alchemists).

The first floor of the building, formerly the ballroom, has housed until the first half of the XX century one of the most important collections of religious art in Umbria, as witnessed by some touristic guides of the time.

In 2002, with the acquisition of the building by the Grisanti family, begins the hotel's history. 

THE BIRTH OF OUR HOTEL
The idea of turning Palazzo Bontadosi into a design hotel & Spa was born in the moment when the current owner, Andrea Grisanti, has knew that the building was on sale. The impetus to undertake such an ambitious project was first of all driven by the passion that Andrea nourishes towards the town of Montefalco. In fact, in the years in which the phenomenon "Sagrantino" has experienced a huge growth, giving birth to a typical food and wine tourism, the owner found out that the territory was unable to cover a demand of high-end resorts and hotels, especially in the town center. The situation of receptivity in those years, excluding few exceptions, it was all oriented towards a medium-low market positioning. Then taking as example and inspiration other important viticultural territories, in which the food and wine are important driving force to a niche tourism segment, it was decided to build a new facility in Montefalco to diversify the offer and attract a wider target of visitors.

Also the wellness center was a crucial point, a condition increasingly necessary, in order to meet the needs of a refined and attentive tourism.

The decision to create the hotel was also motivated by the great passion of the owner for art, design and beauty in general, in fact Mr. Grisanti with his creativity personally took care of  the renovations and the interior designs of the Hotel also thanks to his former experience in the family business involved in real estate developing.

THE RECOVERY OF THE PALACE
The renovation works have been suggested by the history of the building itself. The first interventions, in fact, were aimed  at cleaning up the spaces from the walls and  constructions made in recent times. So thanks to the restoration with glass of the original arches of the façade (once home of the Covered Market) it was possible to get three rooms (Restaurant, Bar and Art Gallery) that thanks to their natural brightness give the feeling of an extension of the square.

The cellars of the building could only been the seat of the wellness center: located in the lower level of the building, and formerly housed a cistern for collecting rainwater. While respecting the history, the water would remain the dominant feature of this floor, obtaining from the tank, under the original vault ceiling, a small pool embellished with black and gold “Bisazze”.

Even for the interior furnishings, utmost respect has been given to the original structure of the building. The study of each room started from a respectful approach to the environment and to all that was “untouchable”: the frescoes, stuccos and decorations. About the interior design, colors and materials were then somehow "matched" to that effect.

Obviously the size of the building (2000 sqm) and thus the limited number of rooms (12 in total) have made possible the attention to details, customization and diversification of each room.

The inspiring criterion has been the contamination: while maintaining the ancient and the architectural feature of the past wouldn’t be possible to have no signs of our contemporary design, so some pieces of furniture have been designed by the owner and realized by expert local craftsmen.

Mr. Grisanti's philosophy is based on the desire to maintain intact the testimony of history if is not possible to recreate something that has been lost. This concept is clearly visible in the interior design that kept only what can be restored, without having to rebuild something that was lost: The thought of Mr. Grisanti is that restoration can and should be limited " to restore injured things while keeping their souls alive". And so this philosophy drove all the interior solutions: inevitably there were parts that where lost (Coatings, flooring, furniture etc ...) in these cases the objective has been not to propose elements of "fake style" (new frescoes, Cotto, wrought- iron) but to use colors and modern materials of contemporary design. The result is the most honest and sincere you would expect: what looks ancient is really ancient.

HOSPITALITY 
From the opening, here at Palazzo Bontadosi we had the aim to offer a new way of high-level hotellerie trying in some way to "rejuvenate" the image of the luxury hotel, without compromising quality and comfort. The goal was clearly to put our guest at the center of attention, respecting the thin limit that divides courtesy from intrusiveness but with the warmth and hospitality that is naturally in the DNA of all the Umbrians, trying to give the impression of being hosted in a house of friends rather than customers of an hotel.

To accomplish this, we have created an elegant but informal team of young professionals (all under 40) who work every day with enthusiasm, bearing in mind the importance of establishing a direct relationship with the guests, while giving a diversified service. This results in an approach "tailored" in which the client lives a unique experience: you can choose, directly form our web site, a specific room for your stay, ask for personalized Spa treatments or special menus, access the Spa with private paths, ask recommendations for activities, excursions and exclusive tours to experience the Umbria as an actor and not as a spectator.
Also the press focuses its attention on us:  in the December issue of Dove we have a special mention in the article "L’Italia Migliore" that lists us between the 10 accommodations worthy of note. The weekly magazine “Io Donna” dedicated an editorial, listing only four facilities included ours, where to spend an unforgettable New Year's Eve in Italy.

THE SPA
Consistent with the hotel philosophy, the spa is characterized by exclusivity and elegance of location. We think that privacy is an essential condition for a deep and complete relaxation, thus we decided to allow the spa access to both hotel guests and external customers, with unique and private access for a period of 1 hour called "AQUAM", with this treatment the guests have the exclusive usage of the Turkish bath with aromatherapy, of the emotional showers, of the relaxation area and the warm treatment. In particular, the latter consists in a small swimming pool heated to body temperature with Dead Sea salty water made in Palazzo’s fourteenth century tank. Great care has been given to the decorations and to the lighting in order to create a warm and relaxing area.

In the massage rooms, in addition to traditional Eastern massage techniques and beauty treatments we also practice Vinotherapy treatments that finds interesting applications in Montefalco, thanks to the high content of polyphenols and tannins of the Sagrantino wine which is used as a powerful antioxidant capable of stimulating circulation, detoxify the body and fight free radicals, thus limiting the aging process. The Grape Facial Massage with seeds, the Jacuzzi and the peeling with the Sagrantino's grape seeds  are just some of the wine therapy treatments for which we use raw materials instead of cosmetics in order to offer absolutely natural and healthy treatments.

THE ART GALLERY
As mentioned above, the passion that the owner nourishes for art has allowed the creation of an ArtGallery  in the spaces of the hotel ground floor.

We profuse a constant commitment to look around in selecting Italian and foreign artists, both known or unknown, young and old, and organize artistic events related to our idea of "beauty", but above all the searching of the works that deserve the definition of "work art "distinguished from merely decorative ones.

Bontadosi Art Gallery with its exhibitions every two months, began the dissemination of contemporary art, in an area that has always seen the presence of important medieval sites as main attractions. Although this presence of ancient art has inhibited, except in some rare cases, the emergence of the avant-garde of contemporary art, our greatest satisfaction was precisely to be able to establish a stimulating dialogue between contemporary art and the elegant spaces of the fifteenth century in line with the mix of old and new that characterizes Palazzo Bontadosi.

Bontadosi Art Gallery is a multi-purpose location, where the total white is a must. For each exposure, we study productions and the space lay out in order to obtain a space that is always different, so that, at each show, is possible to have the impression of entering a space that is new.

Daniel Egnèus, Ilaria Margutti, Paul Staccioli, Neil Moore, Paul Grimaldi, Graziano Carotti, Franco Venanti , David Pompili, Elfrida Gubbini, Sabina Fierce, Alessandro Kokocinski, Giovanni Tommasi Ferroni, Gonzalo Orquin and Francky Criquet ... these are just some of the names of the artists that we have hosted in our Art Gallery that in every occasion, it is ready to mold perfectly around each type of work, as if to hug it. Our desire to bring the work of the different interpreters of  contemporary and the need to search in the artistic prominent cities, has led us to have relations with the major national galleries and foreign companies as selective-Art in Paris, shaking more and more relationships and collaborations through a circuit of galleries in Europe, which involves actually thick as Madrid, Milan, Paris and Brussels, the Bontadosi Art Gallery plays an integral and active part of the circuit.

Restoration project:
Arch. Raffaele Serangeli - MONTEFALCO (PG)
Arch. Luciano Ciancaleoni - FOLIGNO (PG)

Interior design:
Andrea Grisanti – MONTEFALCO (PG)