Fit for an emperor: Bulgari Hotel Roma
The jewellery house’s long-awaited hometown opening is all marble-clad, €1,900-a-night splendour on a storied square dedicated to Augustus
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As I entered central Rome by taxi, my driver started muttering to himself animatedly. A visit from a German politician had led to a traffic snarl-up, police were waving their arms at drivers and drivers were waving their arms back in return, mine included. Swaths of tourists were inching their way down cobbled streets, hugging narrow strips of midday shade, while others had retreated under awnings, glassy-eyed, nursing large glasses of amber Spritz. Midsummer in the Città Eterna has an exhilaratingly febrile feel, but this year it seemed to reach a new peak in one of the city’s storied central squares, Piazza Augustus Imperatore, with the opening of the most heralded hotel in the city in decades: Bulgari Hotel Roma. The luxury jewellery brand was founded in Rome in 1884 by Sotiro Bulgari and has been synonymous with the city ever since. Known for its wildly expensive, exquisitely crafted pieces — in particular, the glitteringly sinuous serpent motif — it has never pretended to be an expert in the hospitality business too. Still, it is having a good stab at it: since its first hotel, in Milan in 2004, Bulgari has opened another eight, from Paris to Tokyo. Rome, its ninth, is indisputably its most important to date — a long-awaited homecoming for the brand.
The search for the perfect symbolic spot for the hotel began over 20 years ago — but it was not until 2019 when Bulgari signed a lease for the monumental 1930s government building in Piazza Augusto Imperatore, 500 metres away from the company’s headquarters, that the project began to take shape. ACPV Architects (Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel), the Italian practice that has designed the other hotels, took on the renovations. Certain features were kept — such as the entrance and two stunning staircases — but the rest was, as Viel puts it “a blank page” for the brand to “show and declare its interaction with the city”. The significance of overlooking a square dedicated to the memory of the first emperor of Rome, who famously took a city built from bricks and turned it into marble imported from the wider empire, was not lost on the brand. From the strikingly contemporary black and white Grande Antico used throughout the ground floor, to the four colour schemes in the bathrooms, marble is the hotel’s leitmotif — a statement of authority and luxury.
Entering the sleek lobby, I felt glad that I had worn decent shoes and hidden my Birkenstocks in my bag: everyone, from the smiling staff to the guests seemed dressed to impress, with men in suits and women in elegant flowing attire, heels and, of course, plenty of serious jewellery. Marble corridors on the ground floor showcase Bulgari creations, past and present, with jewel-encrusted necklaces on busts inset into the walls behind glass. Many guests are loyal Bulgari customers and will prioritise a trip to the Bulgari store on their visit, so these displays are something of a shop window, albeit in keeping with the grandeur of the place.
