In what Swiss village is Villa Diodati located?

Villa Diodati is located in the Swiss village of Cologny, near Lake Geneva.

Cologny lies in the canton of Geneva, just outside the city of Geneva. The villa became famous after Lord Byron rented it during the summer of 1816 and stayed there with his physician, John Polidori. Mary Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Claire Clairmont lived nearby and visited the house frequently.

The wet weather of 1816 kept the group indoors for long periods. After reading German supernatural tales, Byron proposed that they each write a ghost story. Mary Godwin’s idea eventually became Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, while Polidori developed The Vampyre from a fragment associated with Byron.

A common mistake is naming Lausanne, Vevey, or Montreux, all familiar places around Lake Geneva. Villa Diodati is specifically associated with Cologny. The building was originally called Villa Belle Rive; Byron adopted the name Diodati from the family that owned it. It remains privately owned rather than operating as a public museum.