11/08/2026
Why is there a room 8 1/2?
One memorable day the concierge received a call from Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini’s motion-picture alter ego. He was shooting a film on the Amalfi Coast and requested a room at the San Pietro. Unfortunately, the concierge apologized, the hotel was completely booked. Overhearing the phone conversation, Carlino grabbed the receiver.
“Don’t worry, Maestro.” He told Mastroianni in his typically self-assured, melodious voice, “We’ll be waiting for you. When do you think you’ll be arriving?”
“I still have to finish up today’s filming, plus the time it will take to reach the hotel from Amalfi.”
Carlino hung up with the look in his eyes of someone who is watching a film yet to be directed. Picking up the phone again, he called marble cutters, painters, plumbers, electricians and builders. The dream master would perform his magic and conjure a room where there had been none. His team of technicians descended on the ample terrace he picked out, adjacent to some rooms. A giant slab of marble was attached to a wooden frame rather than the wall in order to run the piping and electrical wires behind it. A large ceramic salad bowl with a hole drilled in its centre was transformed into the bathroom sink. The terrace pergola disappeared under a swath of fabrics found in storage. And since the terrace had few walls, he welded several large windows together to create a room with a 180 degree view. When it was finished, the room looked as though it had always been there with the rest.
The space was still being furnished when Mastroianni pulled into the San Pietro parking with Catherine Deneuve and their daughter Chiara who was just a few weeks old. Staking his reputation on his skill as an entertainer, Carlino whisked the lovers away on a tour that smacked of the Fellinesque in his portrayal of the San Pietro as dream-like and primordial in its nature, with surprises around every corner. A couple of hours and many drinks later, the actors crossed the threshold of the new room, never knowing that they were stepping onto a set staged solely for them, that would be dismantled once they left it. They stayed for three months. In honour of its famous guest, the room, rebuilt properly afterwards, was named 8 ½ after the Fellini film starring Mastroianni–a name which it has kept till today.