Fellini pad for sale, would suit ‘La Dolce Vita’ fan

Did you ever fancy buying a real, live slice of La Dolce Vita? Well, now is your chance because the penthouse apartment that was once home to film director Federico Fellini is currently up for sale. The only minor problem is that you will probably need to splash out €4 million or thereabouts to clinch the deal.

Cinema buffs of a certain age need little introduction to Federico Fellini. One of the great protagonists of a post-war, golden era of Italian cinema, Fellini made films that were a lyrical blend of fantasy, dreams, memory and magic, liberally doused with an earthy reality.

Italian classic

His 1960 classic

La Dolce Vita

not only won him his third Oscar but it also invented the term

papparazo

after a photographer of the same name who weaves in and out of the film as he tries to “snap” various star personalities of the day.

Fellini and his lifelong companion, Giulietta Masina, lived for 12 years between 1956 and 1968 in a splendidly appointed penthouse flat in Rome's fashionable Parioli, overlooking the Villa Elia public park, not far from the modern-day Renzo Piano Music Auditorium. Put another way, this was the home that he and Masina shared while he was working on films such as Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita and 8½.

At 250sq m and with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a den where the maestro often worked, a large kitchen, a dining room and a large terrace, this is a very desirable piece of real estate. Judged from the pictures on the website of estate agency Immobiliare.it, the apartment has a very respectable, even "bourgeois" look.

However, look at it for long enough and you may just begin to hear some of that haunting Nino Rota music that was so important to classics like La Strada and Amarcord. At €4 million, sure it's a snip. luxuryestate.com/p18797441 -penthouse-for-sale-rome