Palazzo Pfanner
From the city walls on Lucca's northern edge, you can look down into the garden of Palazzo Pfanner before you ever set foot inside it — seven geometric lawns, an octagonal fountain, and a procession of stone Olympian gods standing among the lemon pots. That view from above is a reliable spoiler, and the garden holds up entirely once you're in it.
The palazzo itself began as a merchant's residence in 1660 and became, by the mid-nineteenth century, the site of a working brewery run by an Austrian transplant named Felix Pfanner. His family still owns it, and the rooms carry three centuries of accumulated lives: baroque frescoes, period furniture, and a quietly arresting collection of surgical instruments gathered by Felix's descendant Pietro, who served as both physician and mayor of Lucca.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to time it for a slow Tuesday morning, when the garden is quietest. The view of San Frediano's bell tower from the gravel paths is worth framing. If you're considering the Principe Federico apartment for a stay, the garden-facing windows are the reason to book it.
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Book directly at the providerHow Palazzo Pfanner came to be
The Moriconi family, Lucca silk merchants risen to the aristocracy, built the palazzo in 1660. Financial ruin forced a sale in 1680 to the Controni family, fellow silk traders who immediately set about improving the property. Around 1686, architect Domenico Martinelli designed the monumental stone staircase; a decade or two later, the garden was redrawn — most likely by Filippo Juvarra, who gave it the theatrical Baroque geometry it still holds today. A Danish royal, the future Frederick IV, was among the guests in 1692.
In 1846, Felix Pfanner arrived from Hörbranz, Austria, answering a call from the Duke of Lucca for a German brewer. He succeeded well enough to buy the whole palazzo, which took his name and housed his brewhouse until 1929. The Pfanner family opened it to visitors in 1995, and the building has since appeared in films by both Mario Monicelli and Jane Campion.
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When to go
The garden is open from mid-March through December, which covers the full arc of Tuscan seasons. Spring and autumn bring the most comfortable temperatures for walking the gravel paths; summer afternoons can be warm, but the lemon house and laurel cabinets offer shade.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.