The site is located in the municipality of Ascona , about half a kilometre north-west of the old town. An attempt at a revival in the late s met with very limited success. This name first appeared in a brochure published in The area around Locarno was then a haven for political rebels, including various Russian anarchists. Among them was Mikhail Bakunin , who had moved to Ticino in November Bakunin first lived in Locarno and later bought a villa in Minusio , which became a refuge for revolutionaries who were wanted on arrest warrants.
The Brissago Islands , which she had owned since , was the site of great festivals; they are within sight of Ascona. Around , the politician and theosophist Alfredo Pioda [ de ] , together with Franz Hartmann and Countess Constance Wachtmeister , developed a plan to build a theosophical monastery called "Fraternitas" on Monte Monescia. Engelmann belonged to the " Pythagorean League " around the nature-philosopher preacher Johannes Friedrich Guttzeit [ de ] and was running a vegetarian guesthouse.
At that time, the hill was a vineyard threatened by phylloxera infestation, and shepherds and goatherds grazed their herds on the bare hilltop. The actual story of the alternative settlement project began as early as in Bled at that time belonging to Austria-Hungary , today in Slovenia. It was there that the music teacher Ida Hofmann [ de ] , who had grown up in Transylvania , and the Belgian industrialist's son Henri Oedenkoven [ de ] met during a stay at the Arnold Rikli natural healing sanatorium.
Both were unknown to each other until then but developed a strong sympathy for each other in the few weeks of their common cure therapy. An intensive exchange of letters developed between Oedenkoven and Hofmann, which led to a meeting in Munich in October After "Oedenkoven's plan" of the founding of a so-called "vegetable cooperative" had been presented, the decision was made that "each individual's movable property [ The main part of the expected profit would go back to the project, and the rest of the profit would be distributed among the members.
If a member, for whatever reason, intends to leave the project community at a later date, the paid-in capital should be returned to him as soon as "it is liquidated". It was also decided that the cooperative should be founded on the shore of one of the northern Italian lakes and that, in order to find the right place, they wanted to set off immediately — on foot. The direct precursor was the artist community around the German painter and life-reformer Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach — at the "Himmelhof" near Vienna.
