WHO WANTS A PALACE?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 312, 29 June 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHO WANTS A PALACE?

CHANCE FOR AMBITIOUS MAGNATES ; Archduke Franz Ferdinand wants to i ' give away one of the most magnificent j ( dwellings on earth, but no one has- the j ' cha ity to accept it. It is the iniracu- ' towering Villa d'Este at Tivolli, ' 25 mM from Rome. Painters have ! f pai ited'it; poets have sung it; Shelley J' call ri r, "intoxicating," and Carvucci j ' callß if'the earthly paradise." Yet the 1 ' peoßfc ti whom it has been offered .turn j ' up and despairing Archduke j ' does not know how to j ' get rid of it. . ' The Villa d'Este came to Archduke j ! Franz Ferdinand through his kinsman, Francis V., last Duke of Modena, who j' died childless in 1575. With it Franz * * Ferdinand got the numerous Este mil- : lions; and he has since called himself ' Archduke of Austria-Este. Este is the < proudest, oldest line in Europe; and * from it came Henry the Lion, and the \ ] Brunswickian, Hanoverian and British 11 dynasties. King George V.'s right I name, say genealogists, is Este. Franz ' ' Ferdinand was glad to get the name, < gladder to get the millions, and gladdest of all to get the Villa d'Este, for he is an artist all over, and the Villa d'Este is a sanctuary of art. It is a. Renaissance palace, hanging } over mighty terraced gardens, built in 1549 by Pirro Ligorlo. Its flights of steps, its terraces, grottos, basins and cascades, above all its gardens, are fain- , ous; and the balance itself embodies the fantastical architecture of the sixteenth , century, which loved steep and piled-up , masses, and dizzy perspectives. Some . years ago Archduke Franz Ferdinand c set the Austrian artist Othmar Brioschi , to prepare an' album of Villa d'Este mo- , tives, and he told an artists' society that j whenever he got tired of being heir or , Kaiser he would go and live in the villa. , This dream camß to an end. Franz ( Ferdinand will nev'er be able to live at , Tivolli. Italy'i chauvinist newspapers ; daily attack him for being pro-Papal and , anti-Italian; sAA thny have been particularly ferociouslcincei the Tripoli war be- , gan, and since|V,he Hoetzendorf general staff crisis shotted that he was behind a movement tls war on Italy. But though he canncl; enjioy his villa, it costs , him V . £IO,OOO A i'EAR TO KEEP UP : the building, giirdens, terrace and cas- . cades. Franz Aerdinand is a rich man, but he has not Igot £ 10,000 a year ts > : spare, as all his lmoney goes in backing Christian-Social newspapers and other- < wise training up lAustria in the way he wants it to go. I A few years ago Franz Ferdinand let it be known that the Villa d'Este was for sale, and he ntearly sold it to one of the religious orderfe which was being expelled from Frariea>. The rumor spread that the Italian Government would pass special legislation p-reventing such a sale, and the dropped. The archduke continued to sftend £IO,OOO a year on a palace which he\ never saw in order to provide Italians wh\o hated him with a Sunday holiday resorij. A year ago the arahduke resolved to make a virtue of necessity, and present the villa to the Austrialn State. It was to be converted into lin institution re-' sembling the Academie He France in the villa Medici at Rome. lYoung Austrian artists sent by the Stale to study in Italy would live, dream and paint there. The Vienna Ministry of Cults and Education jumped at the offer,'and Archduke Franz Ferdinand jumped Wvith joy at being rid of his costly white elephant. Then the project collapsed. People objected that as the villa was in the Campagna it takes half a day to get to Rome and back. The Austrian State art students allowed only a yar in Italy, whereas the French get four so the travelling to Rome would swallow up too much of their time. v The Ministry found that the present £IO,OOO a year outlay would have to be continued in keeping up the garden and feriaces, and it would cost £30;000 to adapt the building for use by »ttulents. The villa was last inhabited,'from 1803 lo.!8f)G by Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe, v. Ho entertained thereVTie Abbe Liszt; but it is not a niod(/n dwelling-house. The £30,000 would go in making modern bedrooms, ha/s, studios, a museum of intiques, »M other things needed by painters living outside Rome. So the Archduke'« offer was declined with thinks, and in 1011 hang went another £1(1,000. And now in 1012 Archduke I dinand has had one more try at getting rid of the expensive villa. He decide! j that instead of a students' academy hi . would start an artists' home for ma.'.urd painters, architects, musicians, and auth 1 ors who come to Italy in search of in spiration and cheap lodgings. Tlnwould be a private undertaking, to he managed by different private art ami literary societies. It would not ask the State for a penny, and the villa would remain the property of the archduke. But this did not come off. and now Archduke Franz Ferdinand is inclined to sell the villa at a loss rather than spend any more £lo.ooo's. But will anyone I buy a palace which costs such a. sum to keep up even when unoccupied? It is a ibad bargain for an Austrian archduke; it seems an equally bad bargain for a millionaire, whose bid, however, is now'i respectfully* requested. \ \ .