Ambassadors, public figures and royals gathered to share a sumptuous dinner in the ballroom of the Royal Palace in Venice for the inauguration of its rehabilitation.
It is to the patient and tenacious skill of Jérôme Zieseniss that we owe the rehabilitation of the 27 rooms of the Royal Palace of Venice. Twenty-two years were needed to restore the integrity of this palace, and thus double the area of the Correr museum, in Saint Mark’s Square, thanks to the French Committee for the Safeguarding of Venice and its many prestigious patrons. Coming for this inauguration from France, Geneva and the United States, they were all gathered around Princess Maria-Pia of Savoy, Princess of Bourbon-Parma, daughter of the last King of Italy, Umberto II who had stayed in this palace. Daughter-in-law of Princess Napoleon, Princess Béatrice de Bourbon-Siciles, godmother of this exceptional restoration since its launch in 2000, admired the room which was previously the bedroom of the Emperor of the French.
Our ambassador, Christian Masset, walked through the row of rooms, now accessible to the public, before joining the ballroom where the dinner took place. Two long tables, decorated by Matteo Corvino, draped with hand-painted tablecloths taking up the neo-classical motifs of the palace, accompanied by models of Palladian villas, welcomed the guests. An unforgettable moment of Franco-Italian friendship, to which contributed the delicious Rothschild family champagne offered by Béatrice Rosenberg, whose husband, the French academician Pierre Rosenberg, wrote the preface to the splendid book telling the story of this restoration, published by Flammarion .
