Staying in a 19th-century palazzo

Inside Anantara Palazzo Naiadi in Rome, a hotel where the city grid does the hosting

26 Sep 2025

Ancient ruins run beneath you. Renaissance architecture surrounds you. And a 19th-century palazzo becomes your home for the night. Anantara Palazzo Naiadi layers eras in a single glance. At a stone’s throw is the Fountain of the Naiads. Look up and Michelangelo’s basilica frames the horizon. Beneath and behind the piazza sit the Baths of Diocletian, once the largest thermae in the empire, their footprint still dictating the quarter’s geometry. Across the curve, Michelangelo’s Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri folds a basilica into those very ruins.

The ground beneath your feet, the walls beside your bed, and the story your window overlooks — all partake in this history. The rooms hold on to classical proportions but are styled with a light hand. Modern materials contrast frescoed ceilings. And the interiors are just the right balance of restraint and resplendence, and they don’t compete with the view.

In the present-day era when five-star hotels risk becoming interchangeable, and born out of cookie-cutter moulds, Anantara Rome feels specific. It offers both a lens into the city and a quiet pause from it

But the true contemporary expression of the hotel is found at INEO, its fine-dining restaurant led by chef Heros de Agostinis. Recognised by the MICHELIN Guide, INEO offers a progressive Italian menu that reflects the chef’s global sensibility having worked everywhere from the Vatican to Nobu. Balancing technique and storytelling, the food is layered, but with clean flavours, and yet with a bold edge.

The practical payoff is obvious as you step out to a colonnade, cross to the museum in the baths for a quick immersion in epigraphy and sculpture, then slip back for a meeting. Metro A runs under the piazza at Repubblica, and Termini’s rail links are a short walk, which means most of Rome’s business and icons are one hop or an unhurried stroll away.

In the present-day era when five-star hotels risk becoming interchangeable, and born out of cookie-cutter moulds, Anantara Rome feels specific. It offers both a lens into the city and a quiet pause from it as city stays close and legible, which is the true luxury in Rome.