The so-called “Hermitage of D’Annunzio”, also called “Hermitage of the Portelle” due to its location in Portelle (an enchanting hilly area of ​​San Vito Chietino overlooking the sea, part of the Trabocchi coast), owes its name to the stay that the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio spent there, together with Barbara Leoni, in the summer of 1899. The house was chosen and recommended by his friend and painter Francesco Paolo Michetti for the particular beauty of the place. During this stay, D’Annunzio wrote The Triumph of Death, a famous autobiographical narration of her love for the woman, from the first meeting up to the two months spent with her in the hermitage, accurately described in many passages of the work. Since 2009 the hermitage has housed the tomb of Barbara Leoni.
Architecture. Used as a museum-house of D’Annunzio, the building belongs to the type of rural house, which is spread over two levels, with an external access staircase, and reflects the characteristics of the typical 19th-century Abruzzo rural building. Covered in square blocks of sandstone, the main façade, which overlooks the square, takes up the “neo-medieval” language of public buildings in the Lombard area. The ground floor has a portico; on the upper floor the central body, slightly protruding from the sides, is characterized by a sequence of three round openings that give access to the balcony.