It needs guests and friends to make one see Bagni di Lucca afresh. One becomes so used seeing everyday landscapes that there is a danger of taking them for granted. Yesterday, after an excellent Sunday lunch at the Circolo dei Forestieri, we took a walk to the oldest part of Bagni di Lucca Villa which is on the hill overlooking the market square and, indeed, I saw familiar places as if I’d chanced across them for the very first time.

Fortuitously, we met up with the owner of the casa Mansi. The casa was once the holiday home of Napoleon’s first wife, ‘not tonight Josephine’, and Bonaparte’s mother, Letizia Ramolino. Two of the Emperor’s sisters enjoyed their summer here too: Elisa Baciocchi, princess of Lucca, and Paolina Borghese, immortalised in Canova’s statue. (Incidentally, Paolina also had a place at the seaside which I recently visited and described in my post at https://longoio3.com/2019/03/18/lascivious-luxury-at-viareggio/).

More recently, the Casa Mansi was home to Ian Greenlees who was the director of the British Institute of Florence from 1958 to 1980. (For more information about Ian see my article at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/an-aesthete-in-bagni-di-lucca/)

I was particularly struck by a number of plaques in the casa Mansi’s garden, most of which were placed on a wall surrounding a (drained unfortunately ) fishpond. They were memorials to Greenlees’ pets, his beloved boxers.

One plaque was also dedicated to two kid goats.

One plaque, for me summed up the attitude every United Kingdom part or full-time resident in Italy should have. I just find it incredible that in Bagni di Lucca there should still be some ‘brex-pats’ who continue to worship with adulation at the shrine of the false brexitian idol..

These words are what every true lover of Italy and citizen of Europe should aspire to:

(Translation: Ian Greenlees lived here from 1969 to 1988.  His country was England, his love was Italy, his mind and learning were European; honorary citizen of Bagni di Lucca.)

Incidentally, the Casa Mansi is for sale at a price which would barely buy one a pokey mews flat in London’s Kensington. For more on the Casa do see my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/how-to-live-in-style-in-bagni-di-lucca/ )