P sent over a link about the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Via del Corso in Rome, Italy, with its Versailles-esque mirrored gallery and tales of intrigue featuring the son of one of Italy’s oldest and wealthiest clans, Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj, whose ancestors include a classical Roman poet, Popes and an admiral to Emperor Charles V. The palace has been host to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the SS and Queen Elizabeth II, among others. Today, the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj houses one of the most impressive private art collections in the world–paintings by Titian, Velazquez, Raphael and Caravaggio. 16 rooms are open to the public to view these works.
The extraordinary thing about this story is that this palace was the home of two British orphans who were adopted nearly 50 years ago, when they were known as Archibald and Mary. The children were found in the orphanage by an Italian aristocrat, Princess Orietta Pogson Doria Pamphilj and her husband Frank, an English navel officer. Like a fairy-tale, they were taken to Italy to live in this very palace and given new names: Jonathan and Gesine.
Gesine would grow up to marry “a widely respected art historian, Massimiliano Floridi, who is also a Catholic deacon. They live in the countryside to the south of Rome, where Gesine is a full-time mother to the couple’s four daughters. They sometimes stay in their suite of rooms in the family palazzo at weekends. Jonathan, however, lives and works in the old palazzo, administering the family’s vast real estate portfolio. He’s one of the country’s most visible supporters of gay rights, and has recently been seen at Gay Pride marches in Genoa and Catania. A few years ago, he and a Brazilian man, Elson Edeno Braga, were united in a civil partnership in the UK.” [from the Telegraph]
Click through for glimpse of this old and enchanting place . . .
Photographs by Jonathan Becker & Tom Craig; via Vanity Fair
