PALAZZO PUCCINI IN PISTOIA

Historical residence Palazzo Puccini, open for hospitality since 2010 and completely renovated in terms of its furnishings and management between the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, offers its guests 9 rooms with a private bathroom, an elegant lounge and a large, bright breakfast room.

Located on the first floor of what was the birthplace of writer and philanthropist Niccolò Puccini, who was born and bred in Pistoia, it extends along the entire first floor of the Palazzo and is accessible both from the main staircase – a monumental flight of stairs built between 1781 and 1785 during the renovation of the private apartments of a branch of the Puccini family – and via a handy lift. The residence is organised along two main central axes. One leads from the reception area, which was once a room used for private worship, towards the lodgings of Niccolò and his siblings when he was a child, while the other, more sophisticated in terms of its pictorial decoration, runs along a corridor leading to the public spaces. These rooms, now the reading lounge and breakfast area, were formerly the dining room and picture room, reception rooms where Niccolò Puccini's family received guests and displayed their prosperity and artistic sensibility through the refined decorations on the walls and on the vaults.

Guests staying at ‘Dimora Storica Palazzo Puccini’ are provided with a bed and breakfast service. The 9 available rooms (singles, quadruples and family rooms) are all highly personalised. Some are frescoed and each room is uniquely furnished, featuring exquisite period furnishings and decorative details aimed at recreating the familial warmth that once characterised the entire residence and which was unfortunately lost for long periods of time, due to the fragmented division the building suffered over the centuries until the end of the last century, having been separated into several different units.

In addition to its historical charm, Palazzo Puccini now offers high-quality hospitality services: breakfast with fresh produce prepared every morning, daily baked pastries, organic jams and fruit, cereal, biscuits and toast with savoury ingredients. There are coffee stations in all the superior rooms, as well as high-speed Wi-Fi connection, flat-screen TV and air conditioning in every room, and private parking in the immediate vicinity.

THE HISTORY OF PALAZZO PUCCINI

Palazzo Puccini owes its name to the Puccini family from Pistoia, whose presence in the city would appear to date back to the beginning of the 15th century, as testified by several archival studies. The development and later expansion of the Puccini family's urban residence, known as their ‘City Palace’ or ‘Palazzo di Città’, were closely connected to the family's social advancement. During the 15th and 17th centuries, the Puccini family moved from being members of the bourgeois class to the patrician or aristocratic élite. Their otherwise steady social ascent accelerated significantly in the 17th century, thanks to the presence of ‘doctor, physician and philosopher’ Nofri di Giuseppe (1588-1666), who is credited, along with many other merits and initiatives, with defining the Puccini family's coat of arms. The vast wealth he accumulated while exercising his medical profession was invested in the purchase of landed properties and the acquisition of several houses in Pistoia.

These houses, the original nucleus of what is now Palazzo Puccini, were located along an articulated perimeter within the present-day Via del Can Bianco, Vicolo della Vignaccia, Piazzetta Santo Stefano and Vicolo Malconsiglio, in the neighbourhood of San Paolo. Nofri di Giuseppe astutely believed that acquiring a large urban area encompassing an entire city block, which could be adapted to suit any future expansion of the Palazzo that arose, would bring the family together and establish a precise location for them within a particular section of the city, as well as conferring greater social status and implementing the idea of a communion of goods regime between the family members. It was precisely the amalgamation and conjoining of these properties, consisting of five different building units, that would make it possible, through successive interventions carried out between the late 17th and 18th century, to create the Puccini family’s ‘palazzo di città’, an urban residence in the traditional style of noble Florentine and Pistoiese families. With its Renaissance façade and history of grandeur, the Palazzo without doubt elevated the status of this newly ennobled family.

The expansion and careful maintenance of the Palazzo continued into the second half of the 18th century. Improvements were made to the service areas, such as the cellars, stables, barns and storage rooms located on the ground floor, adjacent to the kitchen garden.

According to an inventory from 1772, the first floor of the Palazzo was inhabited by the Puccini family, who occupied the thirteen rooms in the central body. The second floor which was then the attic, and the mezzanine raised floor above the stable and storage room were occupied by the servants. The building was also served by large cellars, outbuildings and various service rooms.

In 1774, the property was divided among the three Puccini heirs: Giuseppe, Tommaso and Niccolò. It was Giuseppe who undertook the renovation of the entire building with the aim of making it more functional and harmonious. He entrusted the task of redesigning and expanding the Palazzo, as well as restoring, extending and regularising the Renaissance façade, to an architect with an excellent reputation.

In preparation for Giuseppe Puccini's marriage to wealthy patrician Maddalena Brunozzi in April 1785, extensive renovation works on the ‘piano nobile’ floor were carried out between 1781 and 1783, and the grand staircase was constructed. The pictorial decorations of various rooms also date back to this period and subsequent years, including those on the ceiling of the room at the corner of Vicolo Malconsiglio and Via Can Bianco, which also displayed the family coat of arms on its façade with an inscription commemorating the completion of the building in 1783. The beautiful polychrome rose window and four pendants decorated with the figure of an eaglet with spread wings indicate that this room was intended for eldest son Domenico.

With regard to the two adjoining rooms, also facing the front of the building, the decoration of the vaults suggests that one was almost certainly intended for their small daughters, Chiara, Laura and Elisabetta (the moulding running along the upper part of the vault depicts an alternating pattern of triglyphs and elegant small plants with berries on a pink background), while the other room was decorated for the two younger sons, Antonio and Niccolò (in this case, the moulding was decorated with stamp motifs depicting small blue dolls and elephants and a frieze of delicate butterflies in flight).

The decorations in the bridal quarters and the adjacent room, known as the ‘Picture Room’, date back to 1797. Both were equipped with a fireplace and adorned with elegant and refined decorations in a classical style, the work of painter Luigi Mecherini and gilder Vangucci. The latter was entrusted with producing the delicate palmette borders that frame the landscape scenes adorning the walls like tapestries.

While the ceiling of the dining room picks up the classical landscape motif found in the lunettes, with the presence of still lifes and illusionistic architectural perspectives, the decoration in this picture room, which was intended to house the family's collection, was almost exclusively focused on the ceiling. To this day, it presents an imposing lacunar motif with a design of faux stone framing, resembling a large coffered ceiling with sunken panels. As for the walls, tests conducted during restoration work were able to confirm that they had simply been painted in cream with an overlay of green stamped flowers, reminiscent of Renaissance fabrics. This decoration had an understated charm and was chosen so as not to detract from an appreciation of the valuable paintings and altarpieces belonging to the Puccini family.

In the same year of 1797, Luigi Mecherini decorated the Puccini spouses’ bedroom with motifs that were very much in vogue at the time, in the so-called 'Etruscan style’. This style was a blend of influences, partly inspired by the still-life paintings featuring ancient vases in the dining room, and partly, as seen in the overdoor decorations, creatively combining elements not only from the Ancient era but also from the Renaissance. Light veils created the illusion of simple drapery both on the walls and on the ceiling, with red figures against a black background. It is highly likely that the choice of Mecherini as the artist and the type of decoration selected were influenced by the advice that Giuseppe received from his brother Tommaso, who was an art expert and director at the Uffizi Gallery from 1793. A cultured and refined man, he was probably the only person who could have succeeded in bringing the taste and curiosity that the Etruscan style was fostering in the wake of the excavations being carried out at Herculaneum and Pompeii to Pistoia.

In April 1799, Pistoia was the site of a pro-French insurrection, a short-lived change of regime that Giuseppe Puccini welcomed and to which he most likely made a contribution, shortly afterwards suffering the consequences of his actions. Imprisoned due to his sympathies for the Jacobins but subsequently released, he chose to devote himself almost exclusively to family affairs and cultivating relationships from that moment on. Proof of this are the records of his lengthy correspondence with his brother Tommaso, which did not cease even when the latter fled to Palermo with the intention of safeguarding a large number of works of art – transporting them by sea from Livorno – which he feared might be seized by the French and thus stolen from the Gallery.

Documents recording the permission granted by the religious authorities for the marriage of Laura Puccini, daughter of Giuseppe and Maddalena Brunozzi, to Francesco Rospigliosi in May 1807, which mention the ‘chapel’ inside the ‘Palazzo di città’, have suggested the existence of a room dedicated to private worship within the residence at that time. This space was almost certainly located on the first floor, but unfortunately no trace of it remains today, with the exception of reference being made to paintings that adorned its walls, namely, two figures of saints in an oval, a canvas illustrating the Holy Saviour and a copy of the Madonna by Andrea del Sarto.

1811 was a year of great mourning for the Puccini family. Within a short span of time, Tommaso, Chiara and Antonio Puccini all passed away, losses that had a significant impact on young Niccolò and his already fragile health.

Between 1818 and 1823, under Niccolò's direction, apartments which are now the headquarters of the Istituti Raggruppati were created on the second floor of the Palazzo for him and for his brother Domenico, and some maintenance work and minor improvements were carried out. Among the most significant of these were the decorations created by Ferdinando Marini. He designed Niccolò's study, depicting emblems of heroes from humanity in the guise of four large sepulchral urns dedicated to Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Machiavelli, artfully arranged to create an illusion of being set against the four walls of a quadrangular temple, beyond whose walls luxuriant vegetation could be glimpsed. Covering the small temple was a coffered motif, at the centre of which was a refined monochrome bas-relief decoration of Italy.

These neo-Classical frescoes and furnishings were thus incorporated to renovate the interior of the residence’s living quarters. However, they were only inhabited for only a short time after completion, as Niccolò decided to leave his native home and retire to the countryside upon returning from his educational journey through Europe conducted during that same period.

In 1836, after the death of his mother Maddalena, Niccolò moved out of the building in a very short space of time. All the paintings, furnishings, personal affairs and documents were inventoried and removed from the Palazzo. Shortly afterwards, his last remaining brother, Domenico, also passed away, and between 1836 and 1837 Niccolò, by then the sole heir to the Palazzo in Via del Can Bianco, decided to divide the property into several units and lease it to tenants, together with all the other adjoining and neighbouring properties.

Niccolò died in 1852. In accordance with his will, the ground floor of the ‘palazzo di città’, which had prudently been kept in service, then became the headquarters of the ‘Causa Pia Puccini’, a charitable entity established by the philanthropist's will and testament. Its specific mission was to handle the sale of all the assets needed to pay the remaining debts and maintain the Orphans' Conservatory.

In compliance with the testamentary provisions, the sale and fragmentation of the properties was immediately initiated, and the buildings thus became the private residences of increasingly less erudite bourgeoisie who unfortunately did not preserve the beautiful paintings in the various rooms, but instead covered much of the artwork with white and coloured paint. These precious decorations were only brought to light again by the most recent restoration work, completed in 2007. Of the majority of the movable assets, however, all traces have been lost; they were most likely sold at auction, which was luckily not the case of the 45,000 volumes that were donated to the Collegio Forteguerri library, where Niccolò studied as a young man.

FACILITIES AND SERVICES: STAYING IN A HISTORICAL RESIDENCE IN PISTOIA

Palazzo Puccini is an elegant historic residence located in the centre of Pistoia. It was completely renovated at the end of 2016 to accommodate guests and meets the highest standards of modern hospitality.

All of its 9 rooms, many of which are frescoed, are uniquely and exclusively furnished with period details, creating a timeless and discreetly luxurious atmosphere.

We pay special attention to providing our guests with top quality service, and our commitment is unwavering in desiring to offer visitors a comfortable stay, offering them all their home comforts even while they are away on holiday.

Our main services include:

• Air conditioning
• Lift
• Hairdryer
• Assistance reserving tours and booking tickets
• Private bathroom in every room
• Pure cotton linens
• Library
• Bidet
• Complimentary bottled water in every room
• Individually adjustable air-conditioning control in every room
• Coffee station
• Coffee/tea available for guests in the lounge
• Italian buffet breakfast with daily freshly baked pastries
• Luggage room
• Rainfall shower system
• Express check-in
• Baby cot available upon request
• Free parking in the vicinity
• Private parking close to the Palazzo (service available upon request and for a fee)
• Small pets allowed
• Complimentary bath products
• Room service (during reception opening hours)
• Smoking area
• Airport transfer (service available upon request and for a fee)
• Railway station transfer (service available upon request and for a fee)
• Flat screen TV
• Free Wi-Fi throughout the property.