The Contessa’s clients are insulated from America’s current mortgage woes. So are the properties she specializes in: sumptuous mansions in regions like Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast. Though Italy’s housing market was relatively flat in 2006, prices for homes in prestigious locations bucked the trend, growing at about 10 percent, according to the 2007 Savills European Housing Review. “The market’s top end is much steadier,” says Charles Weston-Baker, head of Savills’ international division. “It’s the middle market where it’s fickle.” In Tuscany, for example, the market in crumbling farmhouses has slowed of late, but top palazzos have been moving nicely. Indeed, for wealthy buyers of second homes in Europe, many of whom are in banking, a rise in interest rates can be a boon: “If interest rates go up, these people are making more money,” observes Weston-Baker.

Brandolini’s listings are exclusive. Homes start at $3 million, and rentals range from $12,000 to $70,000 a week. Her current roster of about 80 properties includes a Sicilian city-palace; a Palladian villa; and the Villa Il Palagio, a 12th-century farmhouse turned into a glorious rambling estate, complete with faded medieval frescoes, Napoleonic camp beds, and a superb collection of still lifes. On an early fall day, the pool glints invitingly, the sun slants through the olive groves, and turtles creep along in the turtle garden. One of Il Palagio’s previous tenants was American philanthropist Shelby White.

In Italy, grand properties like Il Palagio rarely reach the sales market, Weston-Baker says, unless the aristocratic owners are faced with one of the “three D’s: divorce, death, or debt.” When they are, sales are often private. Savvy villa seekers have to hover, contacting a local lawyer or estate agent years in advance to express their interest in this villa or that palazzo should it ever come up for sale. In such cases, Brandolini’s impeccable connections prove priceless—and she’s not even a local. Born in the U.S., in Georgia, she was studying art history in Florence in the mid-1970s when she met the count, a widower with a three-year-old daughter. Their wedding made her the first American to marry into the Brandolini family. She brought American friendliness and an entrepreneurial spirit to the cozy—at times stuffy—Italian nobility. “My husband says, ‘You give the tu’ ”—the familiar form of address—“ ‘too easily,’ ” she laughs. “ ‘People will get too familiar with you!’ ”

The business began 25 years ago, when the Brandolinis rented out one of their three villas and realized how strong demand was. When the Contessa began trying to persuade Italian friends to let out their second (or third or fourth) homes, many initially balked. Rent the ancestral palazzo? It might look as though one didn’t have the money to keep it up oneself! But the pair had already set a radical example, and many others eventually gave in.

The Brandolinis decline to provide revenue numbers but have four full-time employees (more during high seasons to tend to guests) and rent about 100 properties a year. Their fee is included in the rental price. They have been approached by large real estate firms and have toyed with the idea of expanding beyond Italy. But their hands-on approach—the Contessa tries to meet each client personally and sometimes has them to dinner—means the Best in Italy needs to remain small and independent. Brandolini tells property owners to leave the family pictures and silver service in view. “It shouldn’t feel like a rental home,” she says. “It should feel like you’re a guest in the home—just without the owners there.”

For her 20th anniversary at Bank of America, Ann O’Brien, managing director of its private equity division, decided to take a summer sabbatical in Tuscany. She planned to have nearly a hundred houseguests, so she viewed around 25 properties before settling on two of Brandolini’s: a Palladian villa for two months and a rustic castle for a third. At both, the staff was outstanding, O’Brien says: Male houseguests got used to having their boxer shorts ironed, causing consternation among their wives. Brandolini’s unique selling points, says O’Brien, who previously had a disappointing experience in Tuscany with another agent, are “the diversity of properties, her attention to client detail, and the things other than just a property rental that she can bring to the table.”

Brandolini has found yoga tutors, vintners, obstetricians, and antiques sellers for her clients. One client wanted to learn more about art, so the Contessa arranged for art historians to tutor him; he’s now a world authority on Old Masters. A Manhattan opera aficionado requested singers for nightly recitals in his villa; later he flew them out to New York to sing for him there too.

Occasionally, clients’ exacting standards can border on the obnoxious. One famous client required that all her furniture be white. The Contessa duly had the villa’s contents covered, only to have the client carp that the sheets weren’t monogrammed with her initials. She also informed Brandolini that she did not speak directly to servants and wanted Brandolini to do it for her. Brandolini replied that it wasn’t the done thing in Italy. “I feel,” she laughs, “as though I’m somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.”