Project By Romanelli Family
Artwork by Sarah Mazzetti
Curated ARCHIVIO.COM
THE GENESIS
Take a Venetian family of hoteliers for three generations, who for sixty years have welcomed travellers from all over the world into two hotels – Hotel Flora and Novecento – and a residence, Casa Flora – each with its own unmistakable warmth and charm. Take, too, the need to craft a special kind of hospitality which, beyond offering a “beautiful room”, could provide an authentic perspective on the city, through unexpected experiences and genuinely heartfelt advice. Consider the tourist who, in recent decades, has increasingly longed to return. To experience the lagoon with curious eyes and with the respectful attitude of someone who already lives there. To be welcomed as a friend.
And finally, imagine an extraordinary archive of guestbooks in which stories, drawings and characters intertwine. Think: memories of guests who stayed in Venice feeling at home more than in a hotel; the tangible testimony that a certain kind of tourism truly exists, if only one knows how to recognise it.
It is from the interplay of these elements that “Imaginative Tourists” comes to life – the first By Romanelli Family project exploring the possibilities of a sensitive, unconventional kind of tourism. One that rises above the clichés we tend to associate with tourism itself. And one which, in Venice of all places, despite the millions of visitors, continues to grow.
The project is also an invitation to reflect on the By Romanelli Family’s heritage, and on the narrative, non-extractive form of hospitality they have cultivated over the years.
THE PROJECT
Leafing through a treasure-trove seemingly suspended in time — where past and present merge — ARCHIVIO.COM explored guestbooks chronicling the story of one of Venice’s most renowned hotelier families, alongside vintage photographs, old documents and other heirlooms. From this material, they reimagined the unique connection that forms between host and guest, and that feeling of an unrepeatable, unforgettable journey that stays with us long after our days — or weeks — as a tourist.
Who is the Imaginative Tourist? The ideal guest: someone unafraid of the word “tourist”, who inhabits a place with intention, whether for a fleeting visit or a longer stay, and in harmony with those who call it home. A traveller with an open spirit, able to feel both elsewhere and at home at the same time. This project therefore speaks not only to tourists, but also to those who welcome them, because hospitality is a universal language — one that unites cultures, heals wounds, restores connections and brings distances closer. In a world growing ever more closed, opening a door is a revolutionary act.
Imaginative Tourists is, above all, an invitation to rediscover the joy of travel and to mend our relationship with tourism. In Venice too.
THE EXHIBITION AND POSTCARDS
To share the archive and research carried out in recent months, By Romanelli Family has opened the doors of Casa Flora — the place that most fully reflects their way of welcoming others: a home by name and nature, open to the city all around it, rooted in its social fabric and always looking outwards to the world—for a two-day exhibition.
Here, the most meaningful messages found in the guestbooks have been reinterpreted and transformed into vivid contemporary illustrations with a subtly retro charm by the talented Sarah Mazzetti, a Bologna-born illustrator who has known Venice both as a visitor and as a resident, and who is internationally recognised for her multidisciplinary approach to image-making. Completing the exhibition, spread across every room of the house, were the original guestbooks, print fragments, vintage photographs and meaningful archival finds that together tell the story of By Romanelli Family.
Sarah Mazzetti’s illustrations continue their journey as a permanent installation at Casa Flora, and in the form of a collection of art postcards, presented in beautifully crafted sets found within the Inside Venice store.
The project Il Turista Immaginifico has also been recounted in a video created in collaboration with the Venetian studio Kinonauts, on the occasion of the presentation of the archival work and of By Romanelli Family.