La Fiermontina Luxury Home

Antonia Fiermonte married two sculptors, one after the other, and both are in the garden. At seventeen, in Rome, she met René Letourneur and became his model, then his wife; later she married his best friend, Jacques Zwobada. Letourneur's is a twisted torso, and Zwobada's a totem presiding over the dining patio. The house is 17th-century, inside Lecce's 16th-century walls and built of the city's cream stone, and her grandchildren, Fouad-Giacomo and Antonia-Yasmina Filali, had it rebuilt with the architect Antonio Annicchiarico on the arches and vaults of a Puglian masseria. Its nineteen rooms are spread across several buildings, and in one a cream bed sits in an arched alcove, with glass doors open to a small terrace. When Antonia died, at 42, Zwobada dedicated a mausoleum to her at Mentana, outside Rome; her grandchildren have given her a hotel.

Recommended for couples who want Lecce's baroque on foot and a garden to come back to, and for families, who get suites that divide in two and babysitting. The Basilica di Santa Croce is 600 metres' walk, Piazza Sant'Oronzo and its Roman amphitheatre 700, and the hotel arranges guided walks of the old town as well as cooking classes. The pool lies at the far end of the garden, a green rectangle set in pale stone, with olive shade falling across the loungers. Dinner is at Zéphyr, which takes Salento's dishes and takes liberties with them: frisella with tuna and a tomato gazpacho, or spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino under a tuna tartare. A few of its tables are set apart in a citrus grove, and those are the ones to ask for.