‘We like to mingle with people’: The Italian princess who wants tourists to stay in her palace

Behind the Doors of a Living Palace: Rome’s Last Aristocratic Guesthouse

Activelifezero.com – Most visitors to Rome will never set foot inside a structure that once sheltered a future emperor, yet one such building still welcomes paying guests each night. The Ruspoli Bonaparte Residence, a 16th-century palazzo tucked into the heart of the city’s central shopping district, operates as a five-star hotel while remaining under the direct stewardship of the family that has occupied it for centuries. Its proprietors — Princess Giacinta Ruspoli, a lawyer and journalist who now manages the family’s properties and event operations, and her mother, Princess Maria Pia — insist they are not so much owners as custodians of a building that carries layers of Italian history from the medieval period through the Napoleonic era.

A Lineage Stretching Back to Charlemagne

The Ruspoli name traces its documented ancestry to the Middle Ages, with connections reaching into the reign of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor who consolidated much of Western Europe by the close of the ninth century. Over the centuries the family built considerable wealth through ties to the Vatican, a relationship that helped place several Ruspoli-linked figures on the papal throne and produced at least one canonized saint. The palazzo itself became a stage for one of Europe’s most consequential dynasties when Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, spent his childhood there during the 1820s alongside his mother, Hortense de Beauharnais, the former queen of the Netherlands. Works of art she commissioned still hang within the walls, adding a layer of imperial-era decoration to the already dense historical fabric of the building.

From Seclusion to Hospitality

For generations the palazzo functioned as a private family residence, its doors closed to outsiders. That posture has shifted. Giacinta, who is in her early thirties and handles all bookings, correspondence, and guest requests, explains the family’s current philosophy with characteristic directness:

“We consider ourselves as mere keepers of palazzo Ruspoli Bonaparte, we do not like to say we are the owners of it. Times have changed. My family wants to share all this beauty we have been gifted with everyone else. It comes imbued with a unique chunk of Italy’s history and traditions. We do not live shut in our castello, we like to mingle with people by opening the doors of our very home.”

The decision to open the palazzo to travelers is not purely sentimental. Maintaining a structure of this age and scale in Italy demands continuous, costly intervention. The princesses describe the upkeep as “overwhelmingly expensive,” and each renovation cycle requires navigating the extensive bureaucratic paperwork that Italian law mandates for all historic buildings. Revenue from guest stays therefore funds the very preservation that keeps the palazzo standing.

What a Stay Actually Looks Like

The property offers four suites, each exceeding 1,000 square feet and furnished with antique pieces, tapestries, and period-appropriate décor. Interiors feature ancient coffered ceilings painted against golden backdrops, frescoes depicting vineyards — a motif drawn from the Ruspoli coat of arms — parquet flooring, and old portraits of ancestors. Ceiling-high stone fireplaces and marble detailing anchor the larger rooms. Two of the suites, situated on a higher floor, include double bedrooms, a panoramic veranda, and a private terrace that overlooks Rome’s historical center, furnished with lounge chairs for guests who wish to watch the city below.

Each suite accommodates up to four people. Rates begin at roughly $470 per night and include butler service and breakfast. Guests may additionally book private meals prepared by en-suite chefs working from tailored Italian menus, as well as in-residence beauty services. For those seeking total exclusivity, the entire palazzo can be rented outright at a starting price of 4,000 euros — approximately $4,700 — per night.

The Allure of Aristocratic Tourism

Giacinta notes that the residence draws a particularly strong following among American visitors, many of whom are drawn by the prospect of “experiencing royalty” in a setting where nobility still resides rather than merely decorates a museum wall.

“They pick us because they want to enjoy a princely sojourn and are curious to discover the history of the place and the nobles who still live here, like my mother and I. America doesn’t have a history nor heritage of aristocracy.”

The observation touches on a broader phenomenon: in a country without an entrenched hereditary peerage, encounters with living aristocratic households carry an exotic charge that no amount of museum placarding can replicate. The palazzo sits in a neighborhood where shoppers browse luxury boutiques and café terraces fill each afternoon, yet stepping through its doors transports guests into a world of frescoed ceilings and ancestral portraiture that feels centuries removed from the street outside.

Tales Told at the Table

When Giacinta or her mother happen to cross paths with guests during the day, conversations drift into family lore — the grandeur of past centuries, the scandals, the love affairs, the whispered ghosts, and the battles fought by ancestors whose names appear in medieval chronicles. These stories, told in the same rooms where Napoleon III once played as a child, give the stay a narrative dimension that no standard luxury hotel can offer. The palazzo remains, in the words of its keepers, a living document of Italian history, and its doors, for the first time in centuries, are open to anyone willing to pay the price of entry.