| Throughout the 19th century, European royalty built extraordinary palaces to which they retreated from their "official" lives in St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere. This book offers a panorama of these fantastic estates, where leading architects, craftsmen, muralists, garden designers, and naturalists were employed at enormous expense to create a life of unsurpassed luxury. Many of the palaces are now legendary: Ludwig II s famous Neuschwanstein, which dominates the Bavarian Alps; the "Alexandra Cottage" of Peterhof, the gift of Nicholas I to his wife; the lovely Castle of Miramare built for the ill-fated Archduke Maximilian, the short-lived emperor of Mexico. The palaces are "romantic" in every sense, as creations of their time, and as places suffused with nostalgic memory.Author Jérôme Coignard provides a brief overview of each royal family and their palace s architecture and decoration, drawing on contemporary memoirs and letters. Marc Walter s color photographs are accompanied by period interior views, watercolors, and family photographs. With information on visiting hours and directions to each of the palaces, this book offers a private tour through the last courts of Europe. AUTHOR BIO: Jérôme Coignard is a novelist, essayist, and contributor to numerous French magazines. Marc Walter is a photographer and graphic designer whose most recent books include Voyages around the World and Toile de Jouy. Markus of Habsburg-Lorraine, an Austrian archduke, is the current resident of Kaiser-villa in Bad-Ischl, built for his ancestor, the emperor Franz-Joseph I, in 1834. |
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