Hemingway's old woodie from the 40's and his red Chrysler convertible, circa 1956, have long since vanished from his villa, Finca Vigia, outside Havana, but there is little doubt that their body parts have been recycled into cacharros (a term of endearment, loosely translated as jalopies).
Since three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday villa in Portugal in May 2007, her parents have been accused of everything from selling their child to hiding her body in a freezer.
Named for Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), the title of the most famous (and only) book by the island's most famous author, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, it is a reminder of the other Sicily, a place where winds from Africa disturb the dust of ancient Greek and Roman temples and vine-covered villas of a vanished aristocracy peek out at the world from behind high walls and rusted gates.
He will not be one of those directors who work their magic for twelve contractually obligated weeks and then vanish into their villas.
According to one staff member, "Some guests, especially honeymooners and big names, immediately vanish into their villas for their entire stay".
The Romans colonised their seashores as sites of recreation, congregation and meditation, but their lavish villas and aqua games vanished with the ascent of Christian asceticism.
A Roman version – from the Emperor Hadrian's villa at Tivoli – of a vanished fifth-century BC statue.
THE Villa Muller, a landmark of early modernist architecture, nearly vanished in the tumult of postwar Czechoslovakia.
The painting vanished in April 1944, after the Nazi prefect set up headquarters in the family's Villa Torri di Gattaia, located on the city's highest hill.
The for-rent signs that last year would have vanished in a flash as thousands came to set up a new life here now hang askew from villas and apartment blocks.
