GUIDONIA MONTECELIO, Italy –
First got here the fortress. Then the golf course.
The almost 300,000 followers descending on the Marco Simone membership for the Ryder Cup this week will be capable to see the Eleventh-century fortress with the identical title from numerous factors of the course — it is wedged between the sixth and eighth holes and has an enormous Italian flag waving from its tower — however they will not be capable to go to it.
That is as a result of it is the personal residence of clothier Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna, who owns and runs the golf membership.
Biagiotti Cigna’s mother and father purchased the fortress in 1978 — the yr she was born — after which determined to construct the encircling golf course.
Whereas the golf course not too long ago underwent an 11 million euro ($12 million) full restyling as a way to host the game’s largest group occasion, maintaining a 1,000-year-old fortress is a job that by no means ends.
“I do not actually really feel like I personal this place. I actually really feel I am caring for this place,” Biagiotti Cigna stated in a current interview with The Related Press contained in the fortress partitions. “That is the perspective I’ve. So I actually should make numerous upkeep as a result of there are layers and layers of historical past.”
The fortress, which is accessed by passing by a collection of three totally different safety gates, comprises about 50 rooms, a lot of which characteristic Renaissance-era frescoes. It was named Marco Simone for the son of a Fifteenth-century proprietor, Simone dei Tebaldi, who oversaw an enormous restoration after centuries of invasions.
Astronomer Galileo Galilei as soon as lived within the fortress, and there are stays of prehistoric fossils that date again 300,000 years within the dungeon.
A second-floor workplace is the room that holds probably the most sentimental worth to Biagiotti Cigna.
“This was my mother’s unique studio the place she created most of her collections,” Biagiotti Cigna stated as she sat in entrance of a portrait of her late mom. “She was making sketches sitting proper right here the place I’m proper now. I used to do my homework in that nook proper there. That is actually the place the place every part started.”
Biagiotti Cigna’s grandmother, Delia, began the style home within the Nineteen Sixties as a dressmaker.
“Sadly, she misplaced her father when she was solely 14, and that was 1928. So she began to work to assist the household,” Biagiotti Cigna stated. “She was one of many very first ladies to develop into a supervisor in Fifties Rome.”
In 1964, Delia Soldaini Biagiotti turned well-known when she designed the uniforms for Alitalia’s cabin crew.
Laura Biagiotti, Delia’s daughter and Lavinia’s mom, was finding out archeology in faculty when the household enterprise began increasing. So she shifted her focus to trend and ultimately developed Laura Biagiotti into a global model.
So maybe it is not stunning that Biagiotti Cigna employed a feminine superintendent — a rarity within the golf world — to supervise her course. Lara Arias, a 33-year-old Spaniard, is breaking a gender barrier for the game’s largest group occasion.
“There was a lot vitality right here within the Renaissance and I actually really feel that the Ryder Cup is a brand new renaissance for Marco Simone,” Biagiotti Cigna stated.
Not every part has gone easily, although.
Laura Biagiotti died in 2017, thrusting Biagiotti Cigna not solely right into a management position on the trend home but additionally for the Ryder Cup — simply because the household was coping with getting the required work permits to complete the course redesign — no small activity contemplating Italy’s typically befuddling forms.
hen got here the pandemic, which pushed the Ryder Cup again from 2022 to 2023, and a change within the captaincy with Henrik Stenson changed by Luke Donald after Stenson joined the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour.
“It was not a easy journey,” Biagiotti Cigna stated. “It took numerous effort to get by all of this. And now we’re nearly there.”
All of the whereas, Biagiotti Cigna has additionally been operating her trend home, which remains to be named Laura Biagiotti for her mom. The style home is situated in a constructing subsequent to the fortress grounds.
“We do ladies’s trend equipment, residence collections, youngsters collections and fragrances,” she stated. “I work with about 50 individuals there.”
One different constructing that Biagiotti Cigna has been engaged on these days is a first-century Roman villa adjoining to the tenth gap that was found in the course of the unique course’s building.
“It has some stunning mosaics in what was like a non-public spa,” Biagiotti Cigna stated. “It took us about 4 years to dig it up and restore it. It tells quite a bit in regards to the story of people that lived right here actually 2,000 years in the past.”
The Roman villa, in addition to the style home, will probably be closed to the general public in the course of the Ryder Cup.
“We can’t deal with having so many guests — 300,000 individuals is somewhat too sophisticated to deal with,” Biagiotti Cigna stated. “However proper after the Ryder Cup, guests who come and play Marco Simone, by reserving upfront, will be capable to go to the style home as properly.
“There are such a lot of cultural causes to play Marco Simone,” she added. “(After) the Ryder Cup there will probably be a possibility to embrace a brand new expertise of golf, tradition, trend, meals and archeology.”