Richard Wagner arrived in Ravello, a back of a mule, in the company of the family and the painter Paul von Joukowsky, whom he met a few months earlier in the Villa d’Angri in Naples.

The Master of Leipzig, at the sight of Palazzo Rufolo – outlined by exotic flowers and medieval curtains – in a moment of real ecstasy found the inspiration for the setting of the stage II of the Parsifal, immediately sketched by the Russian painter.

On the same day, Wagner left his autograph in the register of the Pensione Palumbo, an eternal memory of that memorable day: “Die Klingsor Zaubergarten ist gefunden – The Magical Garden of Klingsor is found, May 26, 1880”.

Today, 137 years later, Wagner is the tutelary deity of the Ravello Festival and the fairy garden of Villa Rufolo still revives in the eternal melodies that echo between the luxuriant vegetation and the architectural labyrinths.