Description of the attraction
Villa Paolina is the former summer residence of Paolina Bonaparte, sister of the French Emperor Napoleon, located in the resort town of Viareggio. Today, the villa houses the Alberto Carlo Blanca Archaeological Museum, opened in 1986, the Lorenzo Viano Art Gallery and the Giovanni Chuffreda Musical Instruments Museum (the last two museums were opened in 1994).
The Lorenzo Viano Art Gallery was created back in 1974, and only twenty years after opening it was moved to Villa Paolina. Its exhibits are arranged in chronological order and include paintings, drawings, sketches and slides with description plates. In total, 64 works of modern art are kept in 4 rooms of the villa.
The Musical Instruments Museum of Giovanni Chuffreda occupies six rooms of Villa Paolina, which displays about 400 exhibits, including a pochetta - a tiny "pocket" violin from the 17th century, a Neapolitan mandolin from the 18th century and a collection of instruments from all over Europe.
The Alberto Carl Blanca Archaeological Museum, also known as the Blanca Museum, was opened in 1986. It displays artifacts found on the Versailles Riviera on the Tuscan coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea - hand-made stone objects, fossils from the Paleolithic era, pottery from the Neolithic period, copper and bronze items from the Iron Age. In general, the exhibits of the museum give an idea of human evolution over a long period before the invention of writing.
Villa Paolina itself is considered one of the most notable buildings in Viareggio. It was built in the northern part of the city, on the seashore, in 1822 by Giovanni Lazzarini. At first, the villa was the summer residence of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister Paolina, then it housed a closed boarding house, and later a secondary school. During the Second World War, the two-story villa was seriously damaged, but in the 1980s it was carefully restored. Today, in addition to the three museums, tourists are attracted by the villa's three gardens. The northern garden is connected to the villa and is used as an open-air living room - it is decorated with flower beds, fruit trees and vineyards. The southern garden is separated from the villa by a road - on its territory there is a small vegetable garden and another vineyard. Finally, the so-called "natural garden" is surrounded by a beautiful beach.
