Since 778 A.D., S. Donato val di Comino (FR) has been a witness to the migration of armies, Florentine merchants, monks and pilgrims, earning the name of “the passageway”. A witness to such glorious times is Villa Grancassa, build by the monk Don Franceso Nardone and Sir Felice Grancassa.

The 19th century saw San Donato’s nobleman, building outstanding residences. Amongst them was Sir Felice Grancassa. Always ready to excel, he not only highly decorated halls and sitting rooms but also commissioned San Donato’s craftsmen to engrave the sumptuous gateway and the Staircase of Honour, an elegant and monumental flight of steps which took to the upper floors.

According to tradition, at the end of the building works there was no water left in the cisterns. Don Felice, loosing no hope, “opened the cellars, tapping from numerous and capacious barrels, abundant and generous wine, with which he continued mixing the mortar”. Another well known fact is the lavish reception held after every lucky hunting session.

Such richness was counterbalanced by the generosity with which he welcomed the humble as well as the powerful, the beggars as well as the bishops. However at the end of three generations, mostly due to the lack of male heirs, no trace remained of the Grancassa family. All that remains is a Latin written epigraph, above the main gateway, which recalls the family establishment and their first achievements.

For thirty years Villa Grancassa served as a holiday resort for seminarists. In 1994 it was transformed in an elegant and luxurious hotel as it can be still seen today.