Walking down the stone-paved alley to Punta San Vigilio, nothing is more appropriate than the exhortation carved in an old marble inscription, hanging on the access arch to the harbor, which has been greeting travelers for five centuries encouraging them in forgetting daily troubles to rejoice the magic of this tiny village.
Time really seems to have stopped in this small peninsula on the eastern coast of Garda lake, the tip of a promontory enclosing the gulf of the town of Garda and the stunning “Mermaid Bay”, a name which immediately reveals the charming beauty of this natural cove. Stepping onto slightly time-worn cobblestone to the small port, escorted by two rows of majestic cypresses and the pillars of a very old lemon orchard, peeping at the noble villa, and visiting the little church and the XVIth century inn scent like an unexpected discovery. It’s like coming across a precious stone hidden in the coast at a point where the lake starts getting narrower, heading north, overtowered by hill-terraces covered with groves of citrus and olive trees.
The way Punta San Vigilio looks today was conceived in the mid-XVIth century by the Venetian lawyer and philosopher Agostino Brenzoni, whose noble family, Counts Guarienti di Brenzone, owned the land. A passionate scholar and a mild man in love with this picturesque corner of Garda lake, Agostino Brenzoni defined Punta San Vigilio in 1540 as “the most beautiful spot in the world”, according to a famous geographical description which clearly explains how the world can be divided “… into three parts: Africa, Asia and Europe: Europe is the most beautiful in the world; Italy is the most beautiful in Europe; Lombardy is the most beautiful in Italy; Garda is the most beautiful in Lombardy; San Vigilio is the most beautiful in Garda. Thus, San Vigilio is the most beautiful place in the whole world.”
Aiming at living in harmony with his idea of silence, solitary beauty and contemplation, which took him away from daily business and troubles, the cultured man of letters built a villa featuring simple and severe geometries probably on the ruins of an older building, an alleged pagan temple consecrated to Benacus, the local lake god, as a stone inscription, nowadays kept at Museo Lapidario Maffeiano in Verona, seems to suggest.
The villa was embellished, according to the Renaissance trend and taste and probably following an idea by Michele SanMicheli, the most famous, eclectic and brilliant architect of his time in Verona, with classic-style statues and sculptures, genuine ancient Roman busts, small temples and Italian-styled gardens; the building was later enlarged with a picturesque inn, still today a place of charming beauty, built to accommodate travelers moving across the two shores of the lake, and a tiny church in honor of Saint Vigilio, third bishop of Trento, who converted for the first the people of the lake coast to Christian religion at the end of IVth century.
Five centuries of history, during which artists, statesmen and kings have been hosted at the villa, have been kind to this enchanted location, and kept it as an untouched place where to feel the magic of a genuine, medieval Italian village smelling history and beauty from every of its stones and belvederes overlooking the quiet serenity of the lake.