One person that was at the height of his influence during that period was poet, artist, novelist and filmmaker, Jean Cocteau.

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S. Eliot, Jean Cocteau, Benedetto Croce, James Burnham, Luigi Pirandello and Giovanni Gentile, along with such celebrities as Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor and Lord Rothermere.

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At the turn of the 20th century, he moved from Italy's sunny Adriatic coast to Paris in order to be closer to the epicenter of the Art Nouveau movement, picking up clients, such as Jean Cocteau, along the way.

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Instead, check into the creaky old Palmyra Hotel where luminaries including Jean Cocteau and General de Gaulle once slept, and explore the spectacular ruins of ancient Heliopolis - the "Sun City" - whose Temples of Bacchus and Jupiter hold their own among the Mediterranean's finest.

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