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During the '70s and '80s, Il Salviatino became Stanford University's Italian headquarters and was abandoned for nearly two decades following. Aer a major renovation, it officially opened as a hotel in 2010 and then came under the ownership of Alessandra Rovati Vitali in 2016. Vitali's vision is to cast aside the property's pretentious nature in a more sophisticated and accessible fashion—while still preserving the villa's old-world splendor. ese sentiments are echoed by Il Salviatino's CEO, Marco Milocco, who can oen be spotted admiring the property's grounds and pieces they've inherited from the Ritz in Paris. A native of Tuscany and seasoned hotelier, Milocco has also played a key role in the hotel's core philosophies and offerings. "You can have not one gram of marble, almost zero ceramic and no silver plates—but you feel the luxury. Luxury is not just money, it's the details—the smile of the concierge who greets you. And he smiles genuinely. is is luxury," Milocco told me. "Sure, there are five elements you need to be considered luxury: hot water, perfumed linen, good pillows, mattresses, sound-proofed rooms (maybe Wi-Fi). In Italy, there's a phrase we say, 'il resto è aria fritta.' Which essentially means, 'the rest is fried air.'" What To Do It was of course necessary to spend a couple days admiring the wonders of Florence, drinking wine in the streets with locals and sampling the city's flavors. But during my first days at Il Salviatino, activities within the hotel's grounds I've found were the best ways to get a glimpse of the true soul of Tuscany. Like many quintessential Italian experiences, food is never far from the subject matter, and thus is the case for Il Salviatino where the villa's garden occupies a prominent space of the property's whimsical 12.5 acres. Like many native Tuscans, Il Salviatino's gardener, Lucio, takes great pride in the hotel's vegetable garden and had no qualms about explaining to me when the moon is just right for picking Tuscan kale. Armed with my very own cultivation kit, the vegetable garden gave me a window into its Medieval processors, following techniques used by monks hundreds of years ago: vegetables around the outside and medicinal herbs at the center. "In the Middle Age, monks would use many of these plants as medical herbs. ere were no pharmacies or medicines, so people used to plant these herbs for general health and to help cure diseases," Lucio explained as I dug my spade into the ground where, perhaps, many have before me. Before it was time to leave Il Salviatino behind, I was introduced to Giulio Benuzzi, or as many call him, Giulio the Truffle Hunter. Benuzzi took us to forage the grounds in the hotel's forest which, by the way, is brimming with black truffles. With his two trusty truffle dogs, Maga and Edda, leading the way, we dug up some truffles beneath what seems like centuries-old oaks for the evening's dinner service. V U E N J . C O M 140

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