Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola
Casa Camuzzi
When Hermann Hesse separated from his family and moved to Ticino, after a few weeks he rented four rooms in the Casa Camuzzi, built in 1853 by the architect Agostino Camuzzi. Built in a Russian country house style, the house has an exotic terraced garden.
In this place Hermann Hesse deeply experienced the southern sensuality.
In 1920, in his short story Klingsor's last Sommer, he describes this feeling for life and his beloved garden of Casa Camuzzi: 

«Below him, dizzyingly precipitate, the old terrace gardens dropped away, a densely shadowed tangle of treetops, palms, cedars, chestnuts, judas trees, red beech, and eucalyptus, interwined with climbing plants, lianas, wisterias. Above the blackness of the trees the large glossy leaves of the summer magnolias gleamed pallidly, the huge snow-white blossoms half-shut among them, large as human heads, pale as moon and ivory. From the massed leafage, penetrating and rousing, a tartly sweet smell of lemons drifted towards him.»

Aroused by this environment, Hermann Hesse took long walks which inspired him numerous watercolours.
Today the Museum is located in the Torre Camuzzi, which is part of the complex of Casa Camuzzi. Casa Camuzzi and the garden are private property and can only be admired from the outside.

Casa Camuzzi

© Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola