Real Villa - Marlia

The Villa Reale of Marlia has always been the residence of noble families and great patrons of the arts. From 1805, Napoleon's sister Elisa Baciocchi, sovereign of Lucca and subsequently of all Tuscany, created this grandiose "ensemble" by joining Villa Orsetti - built in the sixteenth century for a powerful tuscan family - with the surrounding properties, including the former summer palace of the Bishops of Lucca, erected in the seventeenth century. She had the old Orsetti palace and its loggia remodelled in the Empire style and preserved the splendid seventeenth-century gardens, with their marvellous open-air theatre, the, "Peschiera", "Camellia walk", and "Grotto", all which survive to this day.
After the fall of Napoleon, the Villa fell into the possession of the Dukes of Parma and the Grand Dukes of Tuscany before becoming the property of King Victor Emmanuel II, when Italy was unified. The latter then gave it to Prince Charles of Capua, brother to the last king of the Two Sicilies, who had been disinherited following his marriage to a British lady who was not of royal blood, Penelope Smyth of Ballynatray.
This romantic though unfortunate couple spent the rest of their life at Villa Reale and can be found buried in the chapel in the grounds. Their son, given his religious mania and eccentric behaviour, was known as the "mad Prince". In order to cover his debts after his death in 1918, the Villa was put up for sale, the contents auctioned and many of the trees in the grounds were cut down for timber.
Count and Countess Pecci-Blunt, parents of the present owners, bought the property in 1924, just in time to stop the total destruction of the park. They then commissioned the famous French architect Jacques Greber to restore the park and had him replant the grounds and create the "Spanish garden", various streams and a lake that still form today a harmonious and romantic complement to the series of classic Italian gardens remaining from the times of the Orsetti.
In the past, guests of particular importance at the Villa have been the violinist Paganini, numerous members of European Royal families and the American painter John Singer Sargent, who did watercolours of the gardens.
The Pecci-Blunt family has continued to uphold this tradition of generous hospitality towards personalities from the world of culture and the arts.