Villa Nobel

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Villa Nobel, park side
Alfred Nobel (left) and Robert Strehlenert in the park of the villa in Sanremo, summer 1896

The Villa Nobel in Sanremo was the last residence and place of death of the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel .

history

The site on which today's Villa Nobel stands was acquired by Pietro Vacchieri at the end of 1870. At the time, it was located on the eastern outskirts of Sanremo and covered an area of ​​around 6100 square meters. In 1874 the villa was ready for occupancy. After various changes of ownership, the villa and most of the park were purchased on April 25, 1891 by Alfred Nobel , who at the time was living in Paris . Presumably political reasons as well as his health problems moved him to move to Italy.

Nobel had the villa remodeled. In the basement he had a laboratory set up for his chemical research and a pier on the seashore for his ballistic research. Nobel intended to spend his old age here. In fact, however, he often stayed in Sweden and Paris, where he also signed his will on November 27, 1895, for example. Almost exactly a year later he returned to Sanremo from his last business trip from Sweden and died in his villa on December 10, 1896.

Villa Nobel was bought in 1897 by Max Adolf Philipp, who was the director of a German dynamite factory . After his death in 1902, the property came into the possession of Giobatta Parodi, whose family lived there until the end of 1969. That year the villa and park were bought by the Sanremo Tourism Organization (Azienda Autonoma di Soggiorno e Turismo di Sanremo). The province of Imperia has owned it since 1973 . After extensive renovation work, the villa and park were reopened to visitors in 2002.

description

After the renovations, the villa presents itself in a neo-Gothic style with echoes of the colonial style and oriental architecture .

The ground floor essentially consists of a single large hall, which is now used for lectures, readings and concerts. Nobel's private apartments were on the first and second floors. There is little furniture left from Nobel’s possession, including his desk and a bookcase (the contents of which consist of official publications about the Nobel Prize and works by the laureates ). The ceiling frescoes have been reconstructed, while the wall frescoes are only fragments.

A museum about the life and work of Alfred Nobel and the scientific environment of the 19th century was set up in the basement . The Nobel Prizes also play a large role, with the Italian Nobel Prize winners being specially highlighted.

In Nobel's time, the park stretched to the seashore and was only cut through by the railway line. Today the park only extends as far as the former route , which was converted into a cycle path in 2001 . Over eighty plant species, some of them rare, grow in the park, including several palm trees and a tall Monterey cypress . It is used in the summer months for theater performances and concerts.

Web links

Commons : Villa Nobel  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Villa Nobel open again. In: Abendblatt.de. November 2, 2002, accessed December 16, 2019 .

Coordinates: 43 ° 49 ′ 16.6 "  N , 7 ° 47 ′ 34.3"  E