Palazzo Fiuggi – Italy’s premier medical retreat

Palazzo Fiuggi Wellness Medical Retreat in Fiuggi, Lazio, is not a conventional luxury hotel. It is Italy’s most ambitious integration of historic grandeur, cutting-edge preventive medicine, internationally celebrated cuisine and genuinely therapeutic natural resources – housed in a building that has been writing history since 1913 and, since its reopening in 2021, is writing a new chapter entirely.

The property belongs to the Forte Village Collection, majority-owned by Musa Bazhaev (Alliance Group) with Lorenzo Giannuzzi as CEO of the Collection. Opened in 1913 as the Grand Hotel Palazzo della Fonte – the first hotel in Europe with a private swimming pool – the Palazzo served as the summer residence of King Vittorio Emanuele III and as Allied Forces headquarters for the whole of Italy during the Second World War. Following an investment of over €49 million, it reopened in 2021 with a fully restored palazzo and a new 6,000-square-metre Medical Spa complex.

Today the retreat offers 102 individually decorated rooms and suites with original Murano glass chandeliers and hand-painted Art Nouveau frescoes; a medical centre led by Dr. David della Morte Canosci (affiliated with the University of Rome Tor Vergata); Roman Baths spanning 700 square metres; two thalassotherapy pools filled with Fiuggi mineral water; 21 multifunctional treatment rooms, eight beauty cabins and six medical rooms. All culinary concepts are directed by three-Michelin-star chef Heinz Beck.

The setting in the Lepini Mountains – 2,461 feet above sea level, 50 miles south-east of Rome – provides a microclimate that is itself regenerative before a single treatment begins: clean mountain air, complete stillness and the healing springs of Fiuggi, whose therapeutic properties for kidney and urinary health have been recognised since the Middle Ages and formally validated by the World Health Organisation.

What is biohacking? The philosophy of the retreat

Biohacking is the science and practice of optimising the biological processes of the human body through deliberate, measurable interventions – with the goal of enhancing performance, health, energy and cognitive function beyond the individual’s natural baseline, and slowing the biological ageing process. The discipline draws on neuroscience, sports medicine, nutritional medicine, chronobiology and the quantified-self movement to create an integrated, personalised approach to long-term health.

The Biohacking Retreat at Palazzo Fiuggi is conceived and led by Stefano Santori, founder of the Mindset Biohacking® method – a scientifically grounded, holistic framework for optimising physical and mental performance. Santori combines state-of-the-art diagnostic technologies with personalised coaching and targeted therapies to improve cellular function, build resilience, optimise metabolic processes and establish behavioural strategies that support sustained health, energy and mental clarity.

What distinguishes the Palazzo Fiuggi programme from other biohacking offerings is its complete medical embedding. All activities are supervised by Palazzo Fiuggi’s Medical Team. Physical performance analysis is conducted via the HPM system – an innovative biomechanical diagnostic procedure that evaluates posture, movement quality and muscular function at a depth normally reserved for elite athletes and rehabilitation medicine. This is the second edition of the Retreat, following the success of the first, which sold out entirely.

Six nights – a complete transformation programme

The Biohacking Retreat includes over 20 individual and group treatments, daily medical supervision, three tailored meals per day following Heinz Beck’s Food Line, and full access to Palazzo Fiuggi’s 6,000-square-metre spa. Every treatment builds on the preceding one – the programme follows a progressive logic that brings the body step by step into optimised states of function and recovery.

The biohacking treatments in detail

Three Workshops

The three workshops are the intellectual foundation of long-term transfer. They provide the conceptual understanding behind each experienced treatment and equip participants with concrete, scientifically grounded tools for independent integration into everyday life. Topics span the principles of biohacking, sleep optimisation and circadian management, and nutritional strategies for sustained performance – led by Stefano Santori and enriched by Palazzo Fiuggi’s specialist medical team.

HPM – High Performance Method in the Movement Lab

The Movement Lab at Palazzo Fiuggi houses one of the most advanced biomechanical analysis systems available in any wellness property in the world. The HPM – High Performance Method is an innovative system that analyses posture, movement patterns and muscular function at a depth normally accessible only to elite athletes and patients in specialised sports medicine centres.

The movement programme is structured in four stages. The Biomechanical Evaluation at the outset creates a complete profile of individual movement quality: asymmetries, compensation patterns, weaknesses in the kinetic chain and areas of latent potential. A bespoke training plan is developed from this baseline. The individual HPM Training session implements this plan under direct guidance. The HPM Group Training broadens the exercise repertoire and introduces the experience of collective movement work. The HPM Final Evaluation at the close of the week makes the week’s progress measurable – and defines the training plan for the months following the retreat. The movement programme is completed by a guided hike in the Lepini Mountains and a subsequent revitalising bath, integrating nature and active recovery as equals within the biohacking protocol.

Nutrition by Heinz Beck – gastronomy in service of the cell

At Palazzo Fiuggi, nutrition is not a secondary consideration. Heinz Beck, whose restaurant La Pergola at the Rome Cavalieri was the first hotel restaurant in Italy to receive three Michelin stars, directs the entire culinary concept of the retreat – and has developed a specially designed Food Line for the Biohacking Retreat that places fine dining in the direct service of metabolic science.

Every meal is calibrated to the metabolic requirements of the biohacking protocol: adequate protein to support the muscle-building processes initiated by HPM training; anti-inflammatory nutrients – omega-3, polyphenols, secondary plant compounds – to amplify the regenerative responses triggered by IHHT and cold therapy; low-glycaemic carbohydrates to maintain stable blood glucose and sustained energy levels; and antioxidant protective compounds that support the mitochondrial repair processes initiated by photobiomodulation.

Daily herbal infusions from one of Italy’s oldest pharmacies complement every meal – botanical preparations used for centuries in the therapeutic support of detoxification, sleep, energy and the nervous system. The therapeutic Fiuggi healing water, served directly from the source, is administered according to a medical protocol: as a drinking cure supporting renal detoxification and as the foundation of the thalassotherapy applications.

Goals and expected outcomes

The Biohacking Retreat is not a holiday in the conventional sense. It is a structured, scientifically supervised transformation programme. The goals are measurable and the methods evidence-based. What participants leave with after six nights are not vague impressions of rest, but concrete physiological and neurological changes – documented in HRV data, comparative HPM measurements and a personalised debrief report.

Every participant leaves with a personalised report containing measurement results, a training plan and specific recommendations for continuing biohacking practice at home. The retreat closes on 28 June 2026. Its effects are felt for weeks and months beyond that date.

Pricing, inclusions and how to book