Restoration
The Palazzo Margherita, a grand century-old Renaissance-style palace, was once the residence of Queen Margherita of Savoia, the widow of King Umberto I of Italy. It was acquired by the American government in 1946 and is now the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
Located both in the garden and within the embassy compound are statues of gods and goddesses, Grecian youths, a Roman satyr, emperors and statesmen, some dating back to the 2nd century A.D. Carved in white marble, a figure of Aphrodite, goddess of love, gazes toward the horizon, her hand resting on a dove, a symbol of love. At the center of the large fountain, which is over 300 years old, a richly detailed Roman-period Carrara statue of the god Triton blows a conch shell spouting water. By a garden wall, a figure of Silenus, the ancient, drunken teacher of Bacchus, reclines on a lion skin.
Without funding from FAPE, these treasures might have been lost. By the late 1980s the statues were no longer aging gracefully. Erosion had badly scarred their surfaces and some figures lacked arms and legs. Others suffered from iron oxide stains, the result of repairs with iron pins that eventually corroded.
In the center of the Grand Staircase at the Palazzo Margherita stands Giambologna’s Venus. A piece that was long overlooked until the State Department purchased the site in 1946, the statue portrays the goddess of beauty emerging from her bath. With the help of Enrico Bruschini, the Embassy’s Fine Arts Curator at the time, and an evaluation of high-value furnishings done by Sotheby’s in 1989, the sculpture (which was once thought of as a Giambologna copy) was identified as an original. After the restoration in 1993, it was returned from an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. FAPE then raised the funds to purchase a pink Trani marble base for the work. It is the only Giambologna sculpture in Rome and is made visible to the public from the Via Veneto by special lighting.
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U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy
via Vittorio Veneto, 121
00187 Rome, Italy