Auberge de La Maison Auberge de La Maison - Golden Book Hotels

AUBERGE DE LA MAISON ~ COURMAYEUR
They had shared a passion for art ever since they had
been at high school together. Together with a handful
of other supporters, they had founded Arte & Vita, a
cultural association that had courageously launched
an awareness campaign to raise the funds needed to
restore Italy’s ill-treated monuments to their ancient
splendour. On Sundays, rucksack on back, wearing
faded jeans and tennis shoes, they travelled side roads,
those ignored by traffic, to find ruined castles, now
home to lizards and rodents, crumbling watchtowers
and country churches cracked by seismic shocks. They
hunted for mouldy paintings and frescoes disfigured
by graffiti. Virginia in particular, with her unshakeable
faith, not in God but in Beauty – held to be the inexhaustible
source of karmic evolution – never let herself
become disheartened by difficulties when she came
across a dulled image of an angel or a Virgin Mary
with child at her breast, covered in the dust of centuries.
She filled in the Discovery Card, a document she
had created herself, which would be discussed with
those who did restoration work, and then religiously
filed by Irma in a folder. The tireless Virginia wrote
biting articles for the local newspapers, protesting the
neglect also of Palazzo San Giacomo. She had fired