What makes a space inspire creativity? Is it the light, the design, a layout conducive to pacing or a view framed for contemplation? At the Santa Maddalena Foundation, a writer’s residency in rural Tuscany, it’s not the floor plan or the ceiling height; there are no standing desks or ergonomic chairs. Instead, there’s an atmosphere of conviviality, long, conversation-fueled lunches and quiet rooms with views over verdant groves and gardens—all cultivated by a single woman, the Baronessa Beatrice Monti della Corte Rezzori. Since she established the foundation in 1998—following the death of her husband, the writer Gregor von Rezzori—a who’s who of contemporary literature, such as Zadie Smith, Sally Rooney, Edmund White, Olga Tokarczuk, Teju Cole and Deborah Levy have enjoyed (often several) productive stays at her idiosyncratic retreat.

That's not to say that the physical spaces at the residency don’t have an impact on its guests. Even before the residency was formally created, the house—which dates back to the 1500s—saw plenty of writers pass through, and an ivy-covered stone tower has had a particular influence on those who have stayed there. The travel writer Bruce Chatwin was a frequent visitor and fan, highlighting the importance of the tower to his creative process in his 1988 book What Am I Doing Here? (Today, guests who stay at the tower should expect to share it with a family of geckos.)

The interiors of Santa Maddalena are comfortable, simple and lived-in—pink-and-white striped wallpaper and shelves sagging with the weight of books and bric-a-brac. Art lines the walls, a throwback to Monti’s initial foray into creative ventures through the Galleria dell’Ariete, which she founded in 1955 in Milan at the age of 25, and which showed New York luminaries such as Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly alongside Italian painters and sculptors of the era. Equally key to the Santa Maddalena experience, however, are the multicourse meals presided over by the now-99-year-old Monti. After all, as Virginia Woolf observed in A Room of One’s Own: “One cannot think well… if one has not dined well.”