Villa Caruso will officially open to the public

FLORENCE, ITALY – On February 25 (11,30 am), will officially open to the public the “Enrico Caruso museum”, the only one in Italy dedicated to the legendary tenor. The museum is located in the sixteenth century Villa di Bellosguardo, on the hills of Lastra a Signa, just outside the city of Florence. It takes its name from its extraordinary position. In the villa you can see thousands of memorabilia donated by the Centro Studi carusiani and take an interactive sensory-emotional path.

On 1540 the noble family Pucci bought the property. But today the late Renaissance style of the Villa only survives in the garden with its animalsísculptures realized by Romolo Del Tadda, involved in those years in the project of the Boboli Garden. In the late years of the nineteenth century, the family Campi bought the estate and on 1906 it became property of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso.

One of his biographers tells that he took the decision after a walk with his beloved Ada Giachetti. The two of them were impressed by the beautiful landscape and the spectacular park.

Caruso hired the architect Vittorio Sabatini, who realized two symmetric buildings. He further restored and enlarged the mansion and transformed it in a typical tuscan villa by using simply plastered walls and sandstoneís fireplaces and doorframes. He embellished the wall connecting the two buildings with a gallery surmounted by an eclectic terrace.

On 1919, after the death of Enrico Caruso, the estate went first to his son Rodolfo, then to his brother Giovanni and finally to the engineer Bianchi. The Villa was then bought by Earl de Micheli, who devoted himself into restoring the Renaissance style of the park. On 1990 the Villa was sold to the family Gucci and on 1995 was finally bought by the town council of Lastra a Signa.