She died at the age of 98, in her home in Spoleto, Perugia, La Princess Doris Mayer Pignatelli. Woman of multiple talents: water skiing champion and for once also an actress, whose talent even won over the great master Federico Fellini. Pignatelli was among the biggest supporters of Festival of Two Worlds, the important Umbrian cultural event. And it was the president of the Festival Andrea Sisti, the artistic director Monique Veaute and the director Paola Macchi who announced the death of the princess: “The name of Doris Pignatelli has always been linked to the Festival, first as a friend, then as a supporter and patron ”.
Who was Princess Doris Mayer Pignatelli
It was a movie-like life that of Doris Mayer Pignatelli. A film that, at times, was colored in dark shades. Born on July 21, 1926 in Bled, Slovenia, she spent a golden childhood, rich and full of love. But then came the war and Marshal Tito’s rise to power. Little Doris’s family was persecuted: her father, accused of collaborating with the Nazis, was killed, she and her mother ended up in prison. Still a teenager, Doris managed to escape, reaching the mountains on the border between Austria and Italy with a long, dangerous and solitary journey on foot.
She arrived in Rome, she managed to build a new life, helped by a bursting beauty. Her elegant ways and the grace of her manners managed to win her a place in the high society of the capital. On June 19, 1949 marries Prince Giovanni Pignatelli of the Leonessa di Monteroduni. From their union two children were born, Luigi and Federico, but the marriage was then annulled by the Sacred Rota twenty-two years later.
The passion for sport and the love for culture
In 1960, the elegance and refinement of Doris Pignatelli conquered one of the greatest masters in the history of Italian cinema. The princess is one of Federico Fellini’s muses, who chose her for a small role in the cult film The sweet lifewhere Doris plays a noblewoman dressed in white, queen of a castle party.
Beautiful, very beautiful – elected Miss Capri – she was a great athlete. She was national water skiing championa sport that she continued to practice until she was 70. She was a curious, cultured and passionate woman. She traveled the world and became friends with some of the greatest intellectuals of her time. Her great friendship with the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, creator of the Festival of Two Worlds of Spoleto, led her to become one of the greatest supporters of the important Umbrian cultural event. And it was precisely to be close to the Festival that the princess moved to the province of Perugia, where she finally said goodbye to this world.
“Class and style, intelligence and vision, with Doris a piece of history of the Festival dei Due Mondi, of its memory, disappears. In his memory remains one of the most significant traits of the Festival, that of participation, of the sense of community that still belongs to the many friends and patrons of the Festival and which is handed down from generation to generation”, we read in the statement signed by Sisti, Veaute and Macchi.
