Hôtel de Boisgelin (Rue de Varenne, Paris)

The building before you, known as the Hotel de Boisgelin, began its life in seventeen thirty-two as a private residence designed by the architect Jean-Sylvain Cartaud. It was commissioned by Gerard Heusch de Janvry, a secretary to the King of France. Since nineteen thirty-eight, it has served as the official seat of the Italian Embassy in Paris. This arrangement is the result of a unique diplomatic agreement, where France and Italy traded the use of their respective historic mansions; while the Italian government occupies this site in Paris, the French government maintains its own embassy in the historic Palazzo Farnese in Rome.