My wife and one of her friends (and her horrible husband) send a month in Rome. The friend is an artist and historian. Her (now x) husband is writer. These two are rather talented and very good looking; the kind of couple whose lives look just perfect (from a distance). Well, it took this awful trip to Rome to discover just how hollow their situation was. He was not on the up & up about anything; affairs, gambling debts, drug addiction, all the sorts of things that tends to plague successful artistic types.
We had all rented this beautiful flat in Rome from this incredible women who made her living as a therapist, but was also an artist. This was actually her place, not some rent-for-business room. She travels, and when does, she rent her flat out to people in her friends & fellow artists’ network. Though her space was beautifully crafted and kept, it was nonetheless not meant to house four people and two rather large egos. So, what should have been an fantastic trip quickly turned into a living operatic fiasco. And that was only the first week.
Well, because we were all friends and determined to make the best of the situation, we the two of us were on constant duty to play interference between the furious two of them. Looking back on it, managing two people who were on the verge of what soon thereafter became a very nasty divorce, was just not a good move. But, what was a good move was moving out of the flat and spending the remaining two weeks in Rome elsewhere.
This is when we found Alberto Moncada di Paternò’s distinct historical boutique palazzo residences at Via Margutta, Via Mario de’ Fiori and Via Babuino, in old Rome.
Oddly enough the palazzo at Via Margutta was built in 1855 and provided studios for artists to live and work. In the early 1900s, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and Giacomo Puccini, among others, created here! The irony of find this place given the context of this trip was just too much.
This area now known as an artists’ quarter is filled with luxury boutiques, cafes and astounding history. Just a few heartbeats away are the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, Piazza del Popolo, Villa Borghese museum and the Mausoleum of Augustus and countless other historical wonders.
Via Margutta 54, styled with modern Italian décor and accented Oriental touches, is bright yellow historical villa housing four luxurious suites, and yes a butler.
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