Take a sixteenth-century Venetian villa: frescoes, an Italian garden, Murano chandeliers. Then call Alessandro Mendini and let him loose. Hang a pink figure from the ceiling. Put a sofa shaped like a mouth under a Damien Hirst heart. Fifty-six rooms, no two alike. This is the BYBLOS Art Hotel, in Corrubbio, in the hills of Valpolicella: one of the largest private collections of contemporary art in Italy, Hirst and Kapoor, Beecroft and Quinn, Fontana, Manzoni, Boetti, Balla, de Chirico, Warhol, Pistoletto, Abramović, Murakami, inside a house that is four centuries old and doesn't feel a day of it. It looks like a hotel. It's a collision with the keys in the door.
It carries the BYBLOS name and the same hunger: two worlds that shouldn't go together, locked in the same room until they become one thing. Another story, in another city: the fashion house is in Milan. But when the two stories cross paths, something happens.
During the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, two hours down the road, it did. For fun. No snow, no ice: the Olympic disciplines restaged inside the villa, with irony as the rule and a BYBLOS piece as the uniform. Ice skating on marble, under the chandeliers. Downhill on a red sofa, in front of Damien Hirst's heart. Skeleton down the colored hallway, flat out between the bedroom doors. Snowboarding on the bed, with a sleep mask instead of goggles. Curling on the terrazzo floor, in stilettos. And a jet ski launched through the spa, under frescoes inspired by Pompeii: it wasn't an official category, we applied anyway.
"Who said the Olympics needed snow? We didn't."
