When it comes to looking after her ancestral Palermo palace, Sicilian princess Signoretta Alliata Licata di Baucina has a decidedly hands-on approach. Back in 1996, when her ballroom’s immense 18th-century Venetian chandelier needed touching up,  she and her husband, banker Biagio Licata di Baucina, and their two children dipped each of its 2,500 pieces of handblown Murano glass in water-and-alcohol baths.

And during the pandemic, when she took advantage of the downtime to clean and restore her palace’s medieval facade, she put on a mask, picked up a trowel and joined a team of local artisans in applying new layers of plaster