The Lilium guide

Art Nouveau and the Lilium why every room is a flower

A Liberty-style hotel in Rome — fourteen rooms, one flower each, a short walk from Porta Pia

There are hotels that declare a style and hotels that live in it. The Lilium belongs to the second kind: we are a Liberty-style hotel in the heart of Rome, and Art Nouveau is not a quotation on the walls — it is the way we conceive our fourteen rooms, each named after a flower. Let us tell you about it from within.

The hall of the Lilium Boutique Hotel, the Liberty and Umbertine aesthetic of the Art Nouveau hotel in Rome

The style, from within

What a Liberty hotel is

When we speak of Art Nouveau and Liberty style we are speaking of the same thing under two names: "Art Nouveau" is the French and international term, "Liberty" is the Italian version, borrowed from the Liberty department store in London. It is the decorative language that sweeps across Europe between 1890 and 1914: the curving line, ornament inspired by nature, the flower as the founding motif. It is no accident that in Italy it was also called the floral style.

The Lilium lives in an Umbertine building on Via Venti Settembre, that late-nineteenth-century Rome built after Unification: sober façades, high ceilings, generous proportions. Onto that framework we have grafted Liberty as a grammar of interiors — not a stage effect, but the thread that ties every space together, from the hall to the last room.

It is this consistency that sets a true Art Nouveau hotel in Rome apart from those who hang a few floral prints and call it a style. Here the flower is not an ornament: it is the organising principle.

The Wisteria Room at Lilium Boutique Hotel, one of the fourteen flower-themed rooms in Liberty style in Rome

Fourteen names, fourteen flowers

Why every room is a flower

Our rooms do not have a number that leaves you anonymous: they have a name. Fourteen rooms, one flower each — because if the flower is the heart of Art Nouveau, the most natural consequence was to make it the heart of hospitality. The Wisteria Room, for example, takes from the wisteria not only its name but its character: the same cascade of curves that Liberty loved to etch into ironwork and stained glass.

Giving a room the name of a flower changes the way you think of it. It is not a label: it is a promise of atmosphere. You choose your own room as you would choose a bouquet — by affinity, by season, by the kind of light you look for on waking. It is the opposite of the interchangeable chain-hotel room: here each one has a personality you remember.

The vocabulary of elegance

The details that make the Liberty style

In the common areas

The wrought iron

Hand-worked iron is the signature of Art Nouveau: railings, lamps, details that turn a cold material into a soft line. It is the same vocabulary you find in the balconies of the Coppedè district, Rome's Liberty corner a short distance from the hotel.

The historic staircase

Windows and arches

The ogival openings and the arches of the corridors speak of the eclecticism of Liberty, which blended medieval memory with modern taste. Climbing the Lilium's historic staircase means moving through this very dialogue between eras, step after step.

In every space

The floral motif

The flower returns everywhere: in the fabrics, in the names of the rooms, in the very idea of the hotel. It is the thread that ties everything together, from reception to pillow, and that makes the Lilium's elegance a discreet thing, never shouted. The "floral style", precisely.

The historic staircase and corridor of the Lilium Boutique Hotel, with arches and wrought iron in Liberty style, Rome

The same language, outside and within

Coppedè, Porta Pia and us

The Lilium is not an island of style in an ordinary quarter. We are a short walk from Porta Pia, Michelangelo's last architectural work, and in the same northern quadrant of Rome where Gino Coppedè signed his celebrated Liberty district. Heading up Via Nomentana, in about twenty minutes you stand before the archway with its wrought-iron lantern in Piazza Mincio.

It is a happy accident and, at the same time, a coherence: the language you admire on the façades of Coppedè — the flower, the curve, ornament that becomes storytelling — is the same one we keep within. To stroll through Coppedè and then return to the Lilium is like continuing the same sentence: the same era, the same taste, the same care for detail.

To explore that piece of the city, we point you to our guide to the Coppedè district: it is the best way to understand where the Lilium's aesthetic comes from.

Before you arrive

Choose your flower

14 rooms·One flower each

Choose your room before the journey

On the website you will find each room with its photos, flower and character: from the Wisteria to the Superior doubles. Choosing it in advance is part of the pleasure — like booking a table whose view you already know. The reception is on hand to advise you on the one best suited to your stay.

Direct booking·Best conditions

Book direct with the Lilium

By booking directly with us, and not through the portals, you obtain the best conditions and can ask us anything in advance: a room on a high floor, a view, a detail. Direct means speaking with the people who will welcome you, not with an intermediary.

Frequently asked questions

Questions about Liberty hotels and flower rooms

What is a Liberty-style or Art Nouveau hotel?

It is a hotel whose interiors follow the decorative language born between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: curving lines, floral motifs, wrought iron, stained glass and ornament inspired by nature. The Lilium Boutique Hotel, in an Umbertine building on Via Venti Settembre in Rome near Porta Pia, lives this style from within: each of its fourteen rooms bears the name of a flower.

Why do the Lilium's rooms bear the name of a flower?

Because the flower is the founding motif of Art Nouveau, the "floral style" from which the hotel's identity is born. Each of the fourteen rooms is dedicated to a flower — the Wisteria, for example — and furnished consistently with that theme. The name is not a decorative label: it is the grammar in which the room is conceived.

What is the difference between Liberty style and Art Nouveau?

They are the same aesthetic family under different names: "Art Nouveau" is the French and international term, "Liberty" is the Italian version, named after the Liberty department store in London. Italian Liberty, also known as the floral style, is a variant of Art Nouveau widespread in Italy between roughly 1890 and 1914, richer in ornament.

Where is the Lilium Boutique Hotel in Rome?

The Lilium is at Via Venti Settembre 58/A, in the north-central part of Rome, a short walk from Porta Pia — Michelangelo's last architectural work. It is in the same quadrant as the Coppedè district, the city's celebrated Liberty corner, reachable on foot by heading up Via Nomentana.

Can the rooms be seen before booking?

Yes: every Lilium room, with photos and a description of each flower, can be browsed on the dedicated page of the website. You can choose your own room and book directly with the hotel, obtaining the best conditions compared with external portals.

Read also

Coppedè District: the Lilium guide to Liberty-style Rome

A flower awaits you

Sleep in a flower

Stay at the Lilium Boutique Hotel and experience Art Nouveau from within — fourteen rooms, one flower each, a short walk from Porta Pia and Liberty-style Rome.

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