I feel an unexpected sense of familiarity when, after jumping out of my taxi on Rome's ever-trafficked Via del Tritone, minutes away from the Trevi Fountain, I reach the historical stone façade of Palazzo Talìa. The first hotel designed by the studio of Oscar-winning director Luca Guadagnino, the project saw the Collegio Nazareno — a school for underprivileged children (and later for the sons of the elite) founded in 1622 by Cardinal Michelangelo Tonti, and active through 1999 — transformed into a technicolored, retro-futuristic home for the inspired traveler.
Reopened this August by the Federici family of real estate firm Gruppo Fresia following a four-year renovation, Palazzo Talìa looks nothing like the schools of my Italian childhood. Dating from the 16th century, the building's origins as a residence for the noble and clerical powers of the Eternal City, and past as its oldest scholastic institution, are written all over its sculpted-in-lions entrance and frescoes- and marbles-filled rooms. Yet, whether because of the presence of the Collegio's sign and flagged front balcony, or due to long corridors, vertiginously tall ceilings, and plaques-adorned staircases, it still reminds me of them, and for a reason.
