The Former Augustinian Monastery in Vicopelago, Lucca: From a Villa of the Buonvisi Family to a Place of Contemplative Life

Abstract

The Villa of Vicopelago is among the properties of the Buonvisi family since 1600, when Geronimo Buonvisi establishes, with his last will, the family’s large fideicommissum. Sold in 1756 to the Seminary of San Martino by Francesco Buonvisi, in 1809 the Villa becomes a state property as a consequence of the secularization policy of religious orders conducted by Napoleon and implemented in Lucca by the Princes Baciocchi. Allocated in the same year to the Real Collegio, in 1886 it was purchased by the Nuns of the Monastery of San Nicolao Novello, who were in search of a new home after the suppressions occurred during the Napoleonic period and the later Kingdom of Italy. The archive research has made it possible to retrace the changes in ownership, the design and configuration of the spaces, including those of the exteriors, as well as the transformations the Villa underwent over the centuries, thus providing an important cognitive tool for future restoration and recovery projects.