The 14 Best Hotels in Italy

Twenty-four rooms in an 18th-century villa on Lake Como, each one individually designed and stuffed with original frescoes, Murano chandeliers, and the kind of gilded mirrors that make you feel briefly aristocratic. The terraced gardens run seven acres down to the water, and a vintage orange Fiat 500 handles property transport. Ranked fourth among the World's 50 Best Hotels, Passalacqua wears its grandeur lightly, the food is simple and seasonal, and the spa hides in a subterranean vault.

Carved into the Amalfi cliffs some ninety meters above the sea, this boutique resort overlooks the fishing village of Conca dei Marini in the kind of setting that makes you feel the architecture is showing off. The design leans into mid-century Mediterranean style, all clean lines meeting handmade craft, with none of the fussy old-school glamour the coast usually trades in. It landed on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, if you need a number to justify the view.

Six hundred year old columns greet you in the lobby of this hotel, housed in a Renaissance palazzo a short walk from the Trevi Fountain. The team kept the bones intact, so cocciopesto plaster, Travertine stone, and a monumental marble staircase do most of the decorating. It's the kind of place that makes you feel like a guest of the building as much as the brand, which is a neat trick for a wellness hotel group.

Art nouveau bones, a courtyard that feels borrowed from a film set, and the kind of slightly faded glamour that no interior designer can fake. Hotel Locarno is a historic Rome property steps from the Piazza del Popolo, and it still carries the bohemian mood that drew Fellini and his crowd decades ago. The current owner inherited it from family and has kept it exactly as it should be: atmospheric, a little theatrical, and blessedly unmodernized.

The tenth floor is the whole argument: Cecconi's wraps you in a 360-degree panorama of Rome while serving Italian classics to a crowd that came for cocktails and stayed for dinner. As a place to stay, it leans on the Soho House formula of muted tones, terrazzo floors, and locally made wall hangings, which manages to feel warm rather than branded. The Discovery list from The 50 gives it a nod.

A former boarding school on the northern hillside above Florence, converted into a five-star resort with enough restraint that the frescoes and coffered ceilings stayed put. Original classrooms are now suites with hand-painted walls, stone bathrooms, and small wine cellars, all looking out over the Duomo from a comfortable distance. The Auberge Collection's Italian debut landed a spot on The 50 Discovery list.

Twelve suites inside a centuries-old palazzo that has never left the founding family's hands, which is either a remarkable preservation story or a very long estate dispute, probably both. The rooms range from frescoed ceilings edged in gold to a suite with its own gilded chapel. Boutique hotel barely covers it. Named a Discovery by The 50, it sits on one of Genoa's grandest streets and sleeps like a private museum that finally let you in.

A rooftop pool with the Dolomite peaks arranged around it like they know what they're doing sets the tone at this 14-suite boutique hotel in Castelbello. South Tyrol practically invented this genre of grown-up mountain retreat, and Amaril fits the template with natural materials, a proper spa, and a no-guests-under-14 rule that keeps things quiet. Apartments come with kitchenettes if you're settling in for a while.

Floor-to-ceiling glass and Patricia Urquiola's interiors face the eastern shore, where Il Sereno sits among Lake Como's old money mansions looking conspicuously, deliberately modern. It's a boutique luxury hotel with 40 suites, a 60-foot infinity pool, a boathouse converted into a spa, and a waterfront restaurant that holds a Michelin star. The kind of place where the lake does half the decorating, and the design team handles the rest.