Private Splendor

Fülszöveg

Despite war and revolution, income and inheritance taxes, the vagaries of fortune, and the relentless passage of time, the eight magnificent houses described in this handsome volume have remained in the same families for centuries—indeed, are still lived in by those families. The retention of these stately homes in family hands is nothing short of a miracle. All aristocratic, the families have found different solutions to the dilemmas posed by keeping and maintaining these homes in a hostile modern era. Solutions involve compromises ranging from opening the houses to the public during established visiting hours to renting out the great salons for social occasions and business events, from marrying demanding and unattractive heiresses to receiving government grants or selling the family jewels. However, once the visiting hoi polloi leave for the day, the beautiful rooms are once again filled with candlelight and liveried servants, the Sevres or Nymphenburg services come out of the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Despite war and revolution, income and inheritance taxes, the vagaries of fortune, and the relentless passage of time, the eight magnificent houses described in this handsome volume have remained in the same families for centuries—indeed, are still lived in by those families. The retention of these stately homes in family hands is nothing short of a miracle. All aristocratic, the families have found different solutions to the dilemmas posed by keeping and maintaining these homes in a hostile modern era. Solutions involve compromises ranging from opening the houses to the public during established visiting hours to renting out the great salons for social occasions and business events, from marrying demanding and unattractive heiresses to receiving government grants or selling the family jewels. However, once the visiting hoi polloi leave for the day, the beautiful rooms are once again filled with candlelight and liveried servants, the Sevres or Nymphenburg services come out of the pantry, guests arrive in evening dress, and sophisticated, entertaining conversation replaces the babble of guided tours.
The houses represented are: the Kasteel de Haar, a completely restored medieval castle near Utrecht that dates from before 1391; Seville's Casa de Pilatos, owned by Spain's most illustrious grandee, the Duchess of Medinaceli; Harewood House in Yorkshire, owned by the Earl of Harewood, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth; the Château de Haroué in Lorraine, built by Marc de Beauveau, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, now reigned over by the present chatelaine, Princess Minnie de Beauvau Craon; the Palazzo Gangi in Palermo, an elaborate and imposing Baroque palace that was used as the set for Luchino Visconti's film version of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's literary masterpiece, The Leopard-, the Palazzo Sacchetti, situated on the Via Giulia in Rome, with its enormous Sala dei Mapi frescoed by the Mannerist painter Francesco Salviati (1510-1563); the Schloss St. Emmeram in Regensburg, the grand residence of the flamboyant Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis; and, lastly, the Palâcio de Fronteira, in the suburbs of Lisbon, the domain of the Duke of Fronteira, with its tiled walls, ancient sculptures, and formal gardens.
The elegant full-color photographs reproduced throughout the book are redolent in atmosphere, and the text is revealing in a way made possible only by the long friendship of the author with the owners of these great houses. This book offers the inside view of an increasingly rare and exquisitely refined way of life. Vissza