About Reverso
A different proposition
Reverso is not a holiday. Not a clinic. Not a standard wellness retreat.
It is a six-day protocol, set inside a restored Liberty-era villa on Lake Maggiore, built on four decades of scientific research into the relationship between mind, body, and time. We do not promise relaxation. We propose a measurable shift.
The science behind it
In 1981, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer conducted a study that has since become a foundation of mind-body research. She placed a group of men in their seventies inside an environment reconstructed exactly as it had been twenty-two years earlier, then asked them to live as if that earlier time were really present. After five days the participants were stronger, more upright, measurably younger. No drugs. No treatment. Only context, and the expectations that followed. ResearchGate
Reverso translates that insight into a residential protocol. Every element of the experience (the architecture, the light, the rhythms of the day, the objects in the room, the conversations at the table) is designed to produce the same psychological conditions that Langer's research has shown can influence physical outcomes.
It is, in our founders' words, not a wellness promise. A validated protocol.
The Founders
Reverso was conceived and developed by Francesco Pagnini and Matteo De Santis.
Francesco Pagnini, Psy.D., Ph.D., is one of the youngest Full Professors of Clinical Psychology in Italy, currently at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He works at the Department of Psychology in Milan and is Associate at the Department of Psychology, Harvard University, where he spent roughly a decade collaborating with Ellen Langer on mind-body research. His work focuses on the relationship between mind and body, on the use of psychological knowledge to change the impact of chronic conditions, and he has collaborated with NASA and the European Space Agency on mind-body practices for deep space exploration. Reverso is the translation of that research into lived experience.
Matteo De Santis is co-founder and driving force of the project. His role is to give the science a form, a place, and a rhythm: to turn a body of academic literature into six days a guest can actually inhabit. He oversees the design and curation of the retreat, the choice of Villa Frua as its setting, and the operational architecture that allows the protocol to be delivered with consistency.
Together they have shaped Reverso as a meeting point between two cultures that rarely speak the same language: rigorous clinical science, and the kind of hospitality that pays attention to the smallest detail.
The place
Villa Frua sits on the hills above Lake Maggiore, looking south toward the water and the Alps. Built at the turn of the twentieth century in pure Liberty style, the villa has been restored room by room with a clear principle: nothing decorative, everything functional to the protocol. The original wallpapers, the period chandeliers, the parquet floors, the terraced garden, the lemon house, the pool framed by lawn and mountains. Each element belongs to a context the mind can read as coherent, immersive, and complete.
A small number of guests share the villa during each session. The scale is deliberate.
The collaboration
Reverso is developed in collaboration with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and draws on research carried out in association with Harvard University. The protocol is documented, measured, and progressively refined. What guests experience at Villa Frua is the result of that ongoing work, not a fixed product.