Villa Ginori-Lisci - Massaciuccoli - It was probably during an excursion with his friends in Massaciuccoli that Giacomo Puccini first established the strong bond with the Lake of Massaciuccoli that was to last until his death. Due to his friendship with marquis Carlo Ginori-Lisci, who in 1887 had bought the lake and the surrounding land from Eugenio Minutoli Tegrimi, the composer moved to Torre del Lago and developed a passion for hunting. Puccini and Carlo Ginori-Lisci were close friends and the composer dedicated "La Bohème" to the marquis and "Avanti Urania" to the marquis` wife, Anna.
The dock was an ideal landing place at the end of the excursion on the lake, but following a terrible car accident, once a barge left from there taking the composer back to Torre del Lago.
Standing in the hamlet called La Piaggetta, the 19th-century renovated Villa Ginori-Lisci unites the suggestive landscape with its red bricks and the profiles of its Tuscan Neo-gothic vaults. Puccini liked this style and wanted it to be used in his villas in Chiatri and Viareggio.
In his frequent visits to the villa, Puccini spent much time with Carlo and Anna`s daughter, Bianca Maria, whom he had met when she was still a child. According to the composer, Bianca Maria was a refined music connoisseur and he often asked her opinion on his operas and gave her the tickets for the shows.

Villa Puccini - Torre del Lago Puccini

In 1891, after having spent the summer at Andreozzi`s, Giacomo Puccini rented two rooms in Venanzio Barsuglia`s tower house on the lake Massaciuccoli. The tower house was a simple building made of three rooms on the first floor and a stable on the ground floor. The two men shared the kitchen. In the following years, Puccini bought the whole tower house and contributed to the project of its demolition.
The villa has a traditional structure, characterized by cubic volumes, symmetry and precise division of the rooms according to their function. Flower-beds decorated with strange stones, palms and hedges creating particular optical effects border the garden.
In contrast with the severity of the architectural structure, the interior is characterized by a certain eclecticism.

Villa Puccini - Viareggio - Once he was given honorary citizenship in 1900, Puccini went in Viareggio several times, renting houses or living in hotel. In 1915 he bought some acres of land commanding the pinewood and a few years later commissioned the two architects Pilotti and Severini the building of his new villa in Viareggio. Two years after the beginning of the works, Puccini moved in it. It was December 1921.
The two-storey villa is situated in via Buonarroti. Frames of stone bricks around doors and windows decorate the façades. The northern and eastern façades present masks and other relief decoration in bright enamelled-stone. The rooms inside are organized according to the composer`s needs. The pines and oaks in the garden are the ideal extension of the pinewood in front of the house.

Puccini in Viareggio - if in Torre del Lago Puccini founded the "Club della Bohème" (Bohème Club), in Viareggio he was the president of the "Club Gianni Schicchi", whose illustrious members met in the homonymous bar on the esplanade.
"La fanciulla del West" (The Girl of the Golden West) is Puccini`s sole opera that was staged in Viareggio, at the Teatro Politeama in September 1923.