Parque Lage
Renaissance-style palace and gardens built by a shipping magnate, now a free art school and cafe.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro traces the coal fortune behind the mansion's Renaissance-style courtyard, built by industrialist Henrique Lage in the 1920s for his wife, the Italian mezzo-soprano Gabriella Besanzoni, who had shared a stage with Enrico Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera. He hired the Italian architect Mario Vodret to remake a nineteenth-century residence, with painted ceilings by the Spanish artist Salvador Payols Sabate. Guests remembered her singing from the terrace above the courtyard pool while the parties carried on below.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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