Munthe was a true Renaissance man a scientist and doctor as well as a poet who was a friend of Henry James, Somerset Maugham, and others. In this 1929 volume, he offers an account of San Michele, a house he built on the site of Roman emperor Tiberius's villa on the Isle of Capri off Italy's southern coast. His weaving of the story of the house with Italian history, mythology, and culture is reminiscent of 18th- and 19th-century travelogs. This book was a smash in several languages for many years. It is now considered a modern classic.
