"I Love Italy" Valentine Cocktail Party

"I LOVE ITALY" 
Valentine Cocktail Party 

Celebrate with us a very special evening dedicated to our love for Italy, and spotlight the trendsetting efforts of LoveItaly, a visionary nonprofit crowdfunding platform that helps lovers of Italy from around the globe contribute to the restoration of Italian cultural heritage projects. 

This year's crowdfunding effort with LoveItaly will benefit the restoration of a masterpiece by the ROMANTIC Rafaello (in 2020 the artworld celebrates the 500th anniversary of his passing) inside the beautiful Villa Farnesina here in Rome (more details will be coming shortly from LoveItaly. The Cocktail party will feature appetizers and a drink for a minimum contribution of €20.  Guests are requested, in advance of the evening, to reserve their place by inserting a contribution here below.  You may add the amount of your choice to benefit the restoration of the spectacular loggia. 

Invite your family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors to SHARE THE LOVE. Come out and celebrate with us starting at 6pm on February 12th!

Raphael was a romantic, tying his work with the spirit of Valentine's Day. See here below what Vasari worse about him, and some info about ViIla Farensina - where crowd funders can easily get to follow the restoration's progress and final results..and feel a strong, personal connection to it. 

Raffaello was a very amorous person, delighting much in women, and ever ready to serve them; which was the reason that, in the pursuit of his carnal pleasures, he found his friends more complacent and indulgent towards him than perchance was right. Wherefore, when his dear friend Agostino Chigi commissioned him to paint the first loggia in his palace, Raffaello was not able to give much attention to his work, on account of the love that he had for his mistress; at which Agostino fell into such despair, that he so contrived by means of others, by himself, and in other ways, as to bring it about, although only with difficulty, that this lady should come to live continually with Raffaello in that part of the house where he was working; and in this manner, the work was brought to completion. For this work, he made all the cartoons, and he colored many of the figures in fresco with his own hand. And on the ceiling he made the Council of the Gods in Heaven, wherein, in the forms of the Gods, are seen many vestments and lineaments copied from the antique, and executed with very beautiful grace and draughtsmanship. In like manner, he made the Marriage of Psyche, with ministers serving Jove, and the Graces scattering flowers over the table. In the spandrels of the vaulting he executed many scenes, in one of which is Mercury with his flute, who, as he flies, has all the appearance of descending from Heaven; and in another is Jove with an air of celestial dignity, kissing Ganymede; and in another, likewise, lower down, is the Car of Venus, and the Graces, with Mercury, drawing Psyche up to Heaven; with many other scenes from the poets in the other spandrels. And in the spherical triangles of the vaulting above the arches, between the spandrels, are many most beautiful little boys in foreshortening, hovering in the air and carrying all the instruments of the gods; Jove’s lightnings and thunderbolts, the helmet, sword, and shield of Mars, Vulcan’s hammers, the club and lion skin of Hercules, the caduceus of Mercury, Pan’s pipes, and the agricultural rakes of Vertumnus. All are accompanied by animals appropriate to their character; and the whole work, both as picture and as a poem, is truly beautiful. Round these scenes he caused Giovanni da Udine to make a border of all kinds of flowers, foliage, and fruits, in festoons, which are as beautiful as they could be.

Taken from “Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori scultori e architetti” di Giorgio Vasari.

Villa Farnesina, Rome.  

The Villa Farnesina is one of the most famous buildings in Rome and one of the most elegant statements of the entire Italian Renaissance, a masterpiece in which architectural design fuses with pictorial decoration.  Although the first Renaissance villas with their formal gardens were built around Florence, the fashion for grand country villas then came to Rome.  Many hands were involved in the building and decoration of Villa Farnesina, one of the first ‘country villas’ in Rome modeled on the great Imperial villas of Ancient Rome. One of those hands was Raphael whom the art world will celebrate in 2020 for the five hundredth anniversary of his passing. 

Built at the beginning of the sixteenth century by the Tuscan banker and Papal Treasurer Agostino Chigi, it should have been named for him, the highly ambitious patron and art-lover born in Siena in 1466. He commissioned the Villa as the tangible sign of his own personality and high culture, decorating it magnificently and living in it until his death in 1520.  However, after a somewhat troubled history and many changes of ownership, the Villa now bears the name and preserves the memory of the Farnese family, who acquired it in 1579.

And while this building has the indelible imprint of its first creator, it also bears the marks of many more centuries of occupants.  The careful work of restoration has now moved into the rooms that were created several hundred years after Agostino Chigi’s death. 

Villa Farnesina, Rome

Following the end of the Kingdom of Naples in 1860, Francesco II Bourbon, a Farnese through his mother, was forced into exile in Rome. Here, he eventually moved into his property of “Palazzo Farnese” although he was not destined to stay there. In 1861, he rented the villa for 99 years to the Duke di Ripalta, Salvador Bermudez de Castro, who had previously distinguished himself as the Spanish Ambassador to Naples.

The Duke was in love with Matilde Ludovica of Baviera, who was married to Luigi Maria Bourbon.  She bore the Duke a daughter, Maria Salvadora, who lived in the villa until 1927.

Invite your family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors to be a part of history. Come out and celebrate with us starting at 6pm on February 12th!

Become Part of Ancient History & Enlighten Future Generations
- Please RSVP at this link here –

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 This event is presented by the international community of Rome.