ITALY SMELLS GREAT. NOT ONLY THE FOOD, gardens, forests, and sea. There’s the perfume they make.
The whole perfume-making deal started with monks in the Middle Ages who gathered flowers and herbs from the countryside and turned them into health and beauty potions. Their secret recipes are still used, so as you shop you can get in on the alchemy.
Rome
Laura Tonatto, aka the “Italian nose,” is an award-winning perfume maker who began creating her own fragrance line in 1986, at the age of twenty-three. She takes inspiration from such diverse sources as literature, painting, film, and music, imagining smells they evoke—such as her spicy “Cleopatra” or floral “Birth of Venus.” This sleek shop is also an olfactory gallery, with changing exhibitions to illustrate Tonatto’s philosophy and process. You can buy a variety of scents, bath products, room sprays, or have the glamorous staff custom design a perfume for you.
This shop was inspired by Celestino Durante, who came to Rome from a small village in the region of Molise after World War II, to peddle his knife-sharpening business. Soon shaving creams and soaps were added to his cart, and a fragrance business began. In 1996, another generation of Durantes opened this chic shop, where they create fragrances that, in their words, “evoke emotions, desires, and memories.” All is stylishly packaged and the salespeople are sweet and attentive.
Florence
Don’t miss this place. Here gorgeously frescoed ceilings, sculpted columns and arches, stained glass windows, and a staff dressed in chic black takes a shopping experience to a mystical level.
The shop was a fourteenth-century Gothic church of Dominican friars, which was turned into a farmacia to sell their potions in 1612. Today scent scientists reproduce the monk’s recipes and their creations are shipped all over the world.
Santa Maria Novella potpourri, a blend of ten different herbs and flowers from the surrounding hills, comes in monogrammed satin pouches and makes a perfect gift. The top perfume choice is Acqua di Colonia, a citrus and bergamot blend created for Catherine de’ Medici when she went off to Paris to marry Henry II. There’s also Acqua di Santa Maria Novella (aka anti-hysteria water), which was created when tight-corset-wearing gals needed relief from the vapors. Today it’s touted as a cure for digestive problems.
The Renaissance Antinori Palace has been restored to a shop and laboratory under the direction of master perfume maker Sileno Cheloni. You can make an appointment to create a bespoke perfume, or buy from the shop’s grand collection of fragrances and scented candles.
Enjoy a range of fragrant experiences in the fifteenth-century palazzo-atelier of superstar perfume maker Lorenzo Villoresi. Along with his shop, you’ll discover aromatic gardens and a Museum of Scents, where you can learn all about the art of fragrance creation. Museum tours are arranged by appointment.
Venice
The esteemed Venetian Mavive perfume company created this line to pay homage to the Renaissance days when Venice was famous for its perfume laboratories. The shop is in a beautiful centuries-old pharmacy, selling perfume bottled in Murano glass.
Capri
This pretty shop embodies the bewitching purity of Capri, with light polished wood floors and white archways, along with black and white photos of celebrities who’ve shopped here, including Ingrid Bergman and Jackie O.
The legend goes that back in 1380 a Carthusian monk got caught off guard by the arrival of Queen Giovanna d’Anjou of Naples, and ran off to gather flowers all over the island for her. Three days after she left, the monk smelled the vase’s water, found it delightful, and went to an alchemist to figure out how to reproduce it. In 1948 a monastery prior discovered the monk’s recipe, and got the Pope’s blessing to begin the commercial production of Carthusian perfumes.
Everything here is made from Capri’s flowers, such as Fiori di Capri, a combo of wild carnation, lily of the valley and oak. Some scents have been designed by the aforementioned Laura Tonatto, such as Ligea La Sirena, a light perfume inspired by the legend of a mermaid who tried to lure Ulysses to Capri’s shore.
Golden Day: In Capri, stroll the Gardens of Augustus, continue on the path to Carthusia, eat at Ristorante Villa Brunella (Via Tragara 24A, 081 837 0122, www.villabrunella.it) and stay at their beautiful hotel with a fantastic view.