Villa San Michele (Axel Munthe)
Anacapri
FamousMuseums
The story
The white house that Swedish doctor Axel Munthe built among ancient columns and pergolas, with its granite sphinx gazing out over the Gulf of Naples.
Access
€ 12, closed in February
The story
Villa San Michele is the house that the Swedish physician and writer Axel Munthe built in Anacapri between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, on the remains of a chapel dedicated to Saint Michael and of one of the villas of the emperor Tiberius. Munthe made it a place where architecture, garden and sea merge, and told its story in a book famous throughout the world, «The Story of San Michele». Today it belongs to a Swedish foundation and is open to the public as a house-museum.
What to see
The villa's rooms, furnished as Munthe left them, with marble and ancient finds gathered on the island; the loggia and the pergola looking out over the gulf; and above all the panoramic terrace with the Egyptian granite sphinx, facing the sea, from which the eye takes in Capri, Vesuvius and the coast. The garden, in bloom in every season, is an integral part of the visit.
How to get there
- Hydrofoil
- Ferry
Tips
The house-museum charges admission and its hours change with the season: it is best to check the official site of the Axel Munthe Foundation before going up. From Piazza Vittoria, in Anacapri, it is a few minutes' walk. On summer evenings the terrace hosts concerts at sunset.
Frequently asked questions
What is Villa San Michele?
The house-museum that the Swedish physician and writer Axel Munthe built in Anacapri around the turn of the twentieth century, on the remains of a villa of Tiberius; today it belongs to a Swedish foundation and can be visited.
What can you see at Villa San Michele?
The rooms furnished by Munthe with ancient finds, the loggia and pergola over the gulf, and the terrace with the famous Egyptian sphinx facing the sea, together with the panoramic garden.
How do you visit it?
It charges admission and has seasonal hours, to be checked on the Axel Munthe Foundation's site; it is a few minutes' walk from Piazza Vittoria, in Anacapri.
This page may contain affiliate links: if you book through them, the site earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. Trasparenza
More gems in Anacapri
In the water & divingGrotta Azzurra
Anacapri
You enter lying flat in a small rowing boat through a low cleft, and inside the water lights up in a luminous blue that seems to rise from the depths.
NatureMonte Solaro (seggiovia)
Anacapri
The chairlift climbs in silence over vineyards and gardens to the island's highest peak, where the eye takes in the whole gulf.
◆ Sacred artEremo di Cetrella
Anacapri
A small Marian hermitage tucked among the rocks below Monte Solaro, reached on foot through the scent of the scrub and the silence of the heights.
◆ History & archaeologyCasa Rossa
Anacapri
The Pompeian-red residence an American colonel wanted in Moorish style, today the keeper of the Roman statues recovered from the waters of the Grotta Azzurra.
Sacred artChiesa di San Michele (pavimento maiolicato)
Anacapri
A majolica floor tells of Adam and Eve driven out of the Garden of Eden, to be admired from above to take in the full sweep of its eighteenth-century colours.
◆ History & archaeologyVilla Damecuta
Anacapri
The remains of an imperial Roman villa on a sheer promontory, among olive trees and a medieval tower, with the gaze stretching toward Ischia.
More gems: Museums
MuseumsMANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale
P.za Museo
One of the world's great archaeological museums: here the Toro Farnese, the mosaics of Pompeii and the Gabinetto Segreto tell the whole ancient Mediterranean in a single visit.
◆ MuseumsAntiquarium
Boscoreale
The museum that tells of daily life at the foot of Vesuvius before the eruption, among carbonised loaves, farm tools and finds handed back by the ash.
◆ MuseumsMuseo dell'Osservatorio Vesuviano
Ercolano
The oldest volcanological observatory in the world, willed by the Bourbons in 1841, with historic instruments and mineral collections, looking out over the slopes of Vesuvius.
◆ MuseumsMuseo Correale
Sorrento
In the family villa of the Correale counts: porcelain, inlaid wood and eighteenth-century views of Naples, and a garden that runs down to a belvedere over the sea.
MuseumsVilla Lysis — Jago Museum Capri
Capri
A 1905 Art Nouveau villa by the poet Fersen, dedicated to love and sorrow; since June 2026 it houses the Jago Museum Capri, with Jago's sculptures in the historic rooms high above the sea.
- ◆ Museums
Ospedale delle Bambole
Napoli
Behind a shop window in Palazzo Marigliano a craftsman mends glass eyes, porcelain arms and dolls' curls, in a workshop born more than a century ago.