Over the years it has become the afternoon’s most beloved—and watched—soap opera on Rai 1, capable of keeping viewers glued to the screen with its original mix of romantic intrigues and nostalgia for the past, a distinctly Italian flair for dressing well and enjoying the good life, and a series of unique settings. The long-awaited eleventh season of Il Paradiso delle Signore resumes on Monday, September 7 at 4:00 PM, ready, as always, to transport fans through the aisles of the Galleria Milano Moda and beyond: if it’s here that most of the protagonists’ personal and professional stories unfold, in fact, among the show’s locations there are real gems.
What it’s about
The Eleventh Season of Il Paradiso delle Signore picks up right where the last season left off. Marcello Barbieri, Roberto Landi and Marta Guarnieri remain at the helm of the grand department store, and with them, in the accounting department, there is Matteo Portelli. While Delia prepares for the long-awaited marriage to Gianlorenzo Botteri, she dedicates herself intensely to her own hairdressing business.
After the summer, Irene and Johnny return to Milan determined to build a future together but without giving up the freedom and the desire to have fun that defines their generation. It is 1967, and Milano, like the rest of Italy, is undergoing a moment of profound cultural upheaval. At the Galleria Milano Moda Odile remains to face a new designer and the financial difficulties of the Guarnieri Bank.
Where the series was filmed
The locations of Il Paradiso delle Signore 11 are mostly unchanged compared to those of the previous seasons (nine air in daytime time and two in prime time on Rai 1). Although the story is set primarily in Milan, the Lombard capital only appears on screen as archival footage: views of some of the city’s most iconic spots, such as Piazza Duomo, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, La Scala, the Castello Sforzesco, and the Navigli district. The soap is shot almost entirely in Rome, between film studios and elegant locations in the capital’s upscale districts.
Videa Studios
“Il Paradiso delle Signore,” the grand shopping gallery at the heart of the fiction, is a clear nod to La Rinascente of Milan: a giant of Italian fashion whose brand, it is known, also employed Gabriele D’Annunzio. The interior scenes were shot, however, at the Videa Studios on Via Livigno in Rome: founded in the early sixties, they have served as sets for major Italian and international classics and today are accessible in large part of their sections.
Villa Vitetti
Villa Guarnieri, another key location in the soap, is Villa Vitetti, better known as the “villa with lesene” for the distinctive façade featuring pilaster-like strips, which has made it recognisable on screen and used as a set for many Italian and international productions. Located on Via di Vigna Murata, not far from the EUR district, today it is mainly used as a wedding venue, but it was originally built by Count Vitetti as a tribute to his beloved wife. Inside, it is rich with furnishings, paintings, statues, antique floors and eclectic pieces of furniture. Outside, it is surrounded by a romantic garden.
Villino Crespi
Another location for Il Paradiso delle Signore, also iconic for the eleventh season, is the Guarnieri Bank’s headquarters. This is Villino Crespi, a Liberty-style building with large windows topped by frames adorned with scrolls and garlands, once part of the residence of the Countess of Mirafiori, Rosina Vercellana, the official mistress and later wife of King Vittorio Emanuele II. Today it is open to visitors and among the most sought-after spots for productions filming in Rome; inside it houses wonderful artworks from the Seventeenth Century above all.
