Capri: Villa Lysis and the Exiled Poet

Walk up through the quiet northeast of Capri to Villa Lysis, the clifftop home the French poet Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen built after a Paris scandal, and where he lived with his companion, Nino Cesarini.

Villa Lysis stands on the northeast tip of Capri, high above the sea and close to the ruins of the emperor Tiberius’s palace. It was built in the early 1900s and is now owned by the City of Capri.

Its creator, the poet and aristocrat Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, left Paris after a scandal and settled on the island. Here he built a home where he could live privately with Nino Cesarini, whom he met in Rome in 1904.

With a private guide, the villa becomes a window onto Capri’s long history as a refuge for people who did not fit the rules at home.

The Walk from the Piazzetta

The villa is reached on foot. From the Piazzetta, lanes lead up through the Monte Tiberio district, past garden walls, lemon trees, and small chapels, and the crowds thin quickly as you climb.

Arriving early in the morning makes the walk cooler and the villa quieter. Along the way, your guide sets the scene: Capri at the turn of the twentieth century, when writers, artists, and exiles from across Europe came to the island for its beauty and its tolerance.

Inside Villa Lysis

A grand staircase leads to a peristyle of Ionic columns, above which Fersen had the words Amori et Dolori Sacrum carved: sacred to love and sorrow. He chose the phrase himself, and it sums up the life he lived here.

Inside, a marble staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade rises to the dining room and the panoramic bedroom he shared with Cesarini. The house mixes neoclassical and Liberty, Italy’s version of Art Nouveau, and its terraces look straight down to the Bay of Naples.

Fersen and Cesarini

Fersen and Cesarini traveled together, including to the Far East, and returned to Capri each time. Fersen commissioned a statue of Cesarini from the sculptor Francesco Jerace for the villa’s garden. In 1909, he also founded Akademos, one of the first literary magazines devoted to love between men.

Fersen died in 1923 and left Cesarini a share of his estate and the right to live at the villa. Cesarini later sold it to Fersen’s sister.

A Meeting Place for the Island

In the early twentieth century, Villa Lysis drew many of Capri’s best-known visitors, from the British writer Norman Douglas to the Marchesa Luisa Casati. It became a salon for poets, painters, and writers who found on Capri a freedom they could not find at home.

That tradition continues. Each summer the villa hosts concerts, performances, and exhibitions, and you may find an installation such as the Jago Museum Capri, which places the sculptor’s work in conversation with the rooms.

Villa Jovis

A path continues from the villa to Villa Jovis, the ruins of the palace Tiberius built on the island’s eastern summit nearly 2,000 years ago. The view from the top takes in the whole Gulf of Naples.

Together, the two villas show two very different retreats on the same headland, one imperial and one deeply personal, and the walk between them is one of the most rewarding on Capri.

Planning Your Villa Lysis Experience

Tickets for Villa Lysis must be bought online in advance, and opening hours change with the season. Allow at least an hour inside, plus the uphill walk from the Piazzetta, and wear flat shoes for the paths. Capri is reached by boat from Naples or Sorrento.

Out Of Office can arrange your tickets, a private guide, and a boat transfer to the island and plan the morning so you reach the villa before the day warms up. Your LGBTQ+ travel specialist can also fit Capri into a longer journey along the Amalfi Coast.