San Giuliano Terme | Agnano, Villa Tadini

The hamlet of Agnano at the foot of Monte Pisano, apparently inhabited since prehistoric times and certainly in Roman times, is surrounded by centuries-old olive groves and Mediterranean scrub. It stood on the border of the rival cities of Pisa and Lucca and was a castle of the Maritime Republic. The construction of the present Church of San Jacopo (formerly named after San Girolamo) is due to the Archbishop of Pisa, while Lorenzo the Magnificent had the present Villa Tadini built as a hunting lodge and holiday resort.

The marriage of his daughter Maddalena and Francesco Cybo Malaspina determined the passage of Agnano into the ownership of the new family. At the beginning of the 16th century, the villa was renovated, assuming a U-shape in Renaissance style with an Italian garden with trees and a rectangular fishpond according to a design attributed to Giovan Battista da Sangallo.

With the last descendant of the Cybo family, Maria Beatrice d’Este, the estate became part of the Lorraine patrimony, who restored it and created the romantic English-style park with thick vegetation of lime trees, cedars of Lebanon, acacias, magnolias and groves of camellias. Later, the 19th-century aviary from the Boboli Gardens in Florence, originally commissioned by King Victor Emmanuel II, was placed here.

Finally, the chocolate merchant Oscar Tobler bought the estate in Agnano and became its sole owner. Following the union of his daughter Anna with Count Mario Tadini Buoninsegni, the old mansion took the name Villa Tadini and still belongs to the same family.

The Villa, which in the past hosted literati such as Poliziano and Pulci, is the venue for concerts and shows.