Sovicille, Siena, Tuscany
The most editorial villa in Tuscany, completed in 1680 for Cardinal Flavio Chigi, nephew of Pope Alexander VII, to a design by Carlo Fontana, Bernini’s pupil. Architectural Digest has called it the most beautiful villa in Tuscany; Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi married here in 2024. Lord Antony Lambton bought it derelict in 1978 and restored it into the English-eccentric-aristocratic house the design press has loved ever since. Princess Margaret and Prince Charles were guests, and the Lambton family still runs it. The grounds hold the Thebaid holy wood, a hermitage reached by three hundred stone steps, seven chapels and the private chapel of S. Eustachio; the romantically overgrown gardens are the ceremony. Weddings are exclusive-use with a mandatory week-long Friday-to-Friday rental in high season, capped at one hundred guests, with around forty-eight sleeping across the villa and three farmhouses.