How our story begins

From the 15th until the 19th century, it had become fashionable among the wealthy merchants of Lucca to invest the fruits of their business in estates located in the countryside of Lucca, in which they built sumptuous summer residences where they sought the calm of life in the open air, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.

In the mid-16th century Girolamo Arnolfini acquired various plots of land in the countryside around Lucca, where he built this villa which became known as the “Villa Arnolfini”. From the Arnolfinis, the villa passed into the hands of the Sirtis, who introduced the current coat of arms, but it gained considerable importance in 1812, when Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, sister of Napoleon Bonaparte and sovereign of Lucca and Tuscany, chose it as part of the prestige royal residence. Elisa appointed the famous violinist Niccolò Paganini as “conductor,” committing him to follow the court on its various journeys. On their alleged relationship there are no official testimonies, only palace gossip: «as for the feelings of the Princess and Paganini, these are things that must be treated very delicately», yet the musician played several times for the Grand Duchess of Tuscany in the closest intimacy. After Elisa's death in 1820, the estate became the property of the Contz family, who reorganized gardens, paths and stone structures as we can still admire them today, even placing the more than 60 lemon plants in earthenware pots according to the custom of the time.

The villa owes its present name to its role in Luchino Visconti’s movie “L’innocente” (1976). Various scenes were shot in the villa, portraying the movie’s Roman aristocrats protagonists in their summer residence called, precisely, “La Badiola”.