These are the most exciting meetings, the ones that come about by chance. It is 1927 and Giuseppe Roscioli meets by chance, in Milan, his future life partner: Anna Maria Pallavicini. They married a few months later and together they began an adventure that would take them first to Nice, where the couple bought and managed a hotel, and then, another twist of fate, to Rome. Extraordinary coincidences, just as extraordinary is the meeting that takes place in the Caffè Grand'Italia, in Piazza della Repubblica. Seated at a table, two friends propose to Giuseppe the purchase of a small boarding house, on the second floor of an aristocratic palace built in 1888. This was the beginning of the Hotel Universo. The inauguration took place in 1933, after a series of major improvements: it was the first guesthouse in Rome with running water, hot and cold, in all the rooms.
In 1943, the hotel was occupied first by the Germans and became the base of the German troops' stage command, then by the British. The Roscioli family, this time, was forced to leave the building, which they found destroyed on their return, peace having been made. Work resumes and in 1947 growth begins again. And it is also personal growth. In 1953 the Universo was the first three-star hotel in the city, equipped with air conditioning and automatic lifts.
In 1957, Franco Roscioli inaugurated the largest congress hall in Rome at the Hotel Universo: 300 seats. A record for the time. A drive to expand even further. One after another new hotels were added.
Today, the Roscioli family hotels are present in Rome and Milan - in prestigious chains such as Best Western and Hilton or independent ones such as The Corner Duomo Milan - and operate through two separate companies, RGR Hotels and LVRH.