Tea at Trianon: A Palace in Sicily

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, August 1, 2022

A Palace in Sicily

From Architectural Digest:

The palace changed hands in several occasions during the years. From the 18th to the mid 20th century, a Sicilian family lived there, and then in 1981, the Order of the Knights of Malta inherited the palazzo and kept it for 30 years. Any grand mansion requires substantial upkeep, and Palazzo Castelluccio wasn’t the exception. Though the Order kept it from collapsing to the ground in a great big cloud of dust and debris, the organization didn’t exactly look after the magnificent palace. So in 2011, French filmmaker Jean-Louis Remilleux purchased the palazzo and spent the next four years renovating it to its former glory before finally opening it to the public in 2018.

Restoring long-forgotten homes of nobility is Remilleux’s hobby, and he is good at it. He typically uses his own taste and judgment when it comes to the architecture and interiors in addition to the original style, but in the case of Palazzo Castelluccio, his inspiration was particular. After reading Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s 1958 fictional novel, The Leopard, about a Sicilian nobleman, Remilleux got to work on his new palazzo. He salvaged what he could from the 18th-century masterpiece, including the ceramic floors and colorful frescoes, but he also took some creative liberties that he imagined di Lampedusa would have approved. (Read more.)