Villa Behring

Villa Behring - later known also as Villa Spinola and Hotel Ercolano¹ - is a beautiful red house in Capri (Piazza Cesare Battisti, 2) who belonged to Emil von Behring who liked to spend his vacations there. In 1894, during a long journey through France and Italy, Behring "reverted to the sin of his youth, gambling. He certainly was not the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, but he did win 20,000 francs at the gaming tables, a sum that he later applied to purchasing a small summer house in Capri, where he subsequently vacationed frequently"². After his marriage with Else Spinola, on December 29, 1896, the new couple spent some months in Capri³. Between 1909 and 1911, the house hosted Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Lenin, as a marble tablet on the facade remembers.

• Photos by Davide Barbieri and Antonella Borghi (September 2012).

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Footnotes

1. See B.Caruso, Lenin a Capri. Intellettuali, marxismo, religione. Dedalo, Bari 1978, pp. 82-83.

2. D.S.Linton, Emil von Behring. Infectious Disease, Immunology, Serum Therapy, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia 2005, pp. 193-194.

3. Ibid., p.198.