The Villas of the Riviera: Magnificence and Majesty on the Cote d'Azur Book

Britons travelling through the region around Nice in the late 1700s named it the French Riviera. In 1887 the French poet Stéphen Liegeart, inspired by the Riviera's glorious blue sky and sea, named it La Côte d'Azur for the first time. Though it lost some of its glamour as the coastline was destroyed by a jungle of concrete buildings in last decades of this century, the images of grandeur--moonlight, glittering chandeliers, grand staircases-- endure. Writer Shirley Johnston and photographer Roberto Schezen have gone searching and found 20 examples of the remaining Grand Villas of the Riviera. Béatrice de Rothschild's lavish, individual Villa Ile-de-France, which was built in Italianate Renaissance Revival style and furnished with objets d'art and priceless antiques, is one. Another is academic Théodore Reinach's Greek Revival Villa Krylos, which was built with meticulous attention to historical details like mosaic floors, frescoes and panelled walls. Charles de Nailles, a patron of avant-garde artists like Man Ray and Lipchitz, created a modernist masterpiece that echoes the cubist and deco styles. This is more than just a coffee-table book, though the photography is magnificent. It's a well-researched, historical record of the lives and homes of some of the world's most famous people. --Brian ReinkerRead More