Venice, Doge's Palace armored: tonight and tomorrow is Bulgari's VIP dinner

In Venice today and tomorrow the Doge’s Palace will be armored, at least in the evenings: it has in fact been rented by Bulgari , which will give five days of festivities, between the Doge’s Palace and other venues in the city, on the occasion of the opening of the 18th Architecture Biennale, which will open to the public on May 20 (and run until November 26). For Bulgari, this is a return to the Doge’s Palace: fifteen years ago, in fact, the jewelry maison , which is part of Bernard Arnault’s Lvmh group, inaugurated the restoration of the Golden Staircase to which it had contributed an allocation of 200,000 euros. And in 2010 one of its maxi billboards had appeared on the side of the Bridge of Sighs when the Doge’s Palace was covered by scaffolding for facade restorations.

Tonight and tomorrow there will be two gala dinners with a display of the Bulgari jewelry collection, and light and music show for Bulgari’s “VIP” guests.Given all this, the City Council put in place extraordinary security measures and ordered the early closure of the Doge’s Palace to the public. The museum closed its doors today at 4 p.m. and tomorrow will instead close at 5 p.m. (instead of 7 p.m. as usual). Instead, outside the Doge’s Palace, the souvenir stalls in Piazzetta San Marco have been temporarily cleared to allow guests to enter the Doge’s Palace from Porta della Carta.There are about 300 guests expected for tonight’s dinner (including clients and collectors, while for tomorrow there will be artists, journalists and “influencers”). Also closed to the public at certain times of the day is the Todaro wharf at St. Mark’s Basin (today for landing preparation operations and, from 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., for guests to arrive, tomorrow from 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. again for guest arrival, and finally on May 17 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for removal of temporary structures).

In exchange for the chance to have the Doge’s Palace all to himself for two evenings, Bulgari has guaranteed a substantial outlay to the municipality: the figure has not been disclosed, but rumors speak of a few hundred thousand euros. However, this is not the first time that the Ducal Palace has been rented for gala dinners, which are held rather regularly in the courtyard. The municipality itself has also done so, when in 2014 it organized a dinner at the Palace asking guests for as much as five thousand euros each to support the museum’s activities. And then again in the courtyard, over the years, companies like Dior, Shell and SNAM have taken turns, and there was even the G20 dinner in 2021, when Italy hosted the summit of world leaders, right in Venice, between July 9 and 10. Nothing new, then, for the Palace.

Pictured: a gala dinner organized by AVM for the Redentore celebration.

Venice, Doge's Palace armored: tonight and tomorrow is Bulgari's VIP dinner

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