THE FACTS ABOUT VILLA CONTRONI

Italy

Lucca is famous for its perfectly proportioned old town, encircled by wide fortress walls and deep moat. Home to Puccini and Pinocchio, it has a number of grand villas, aristocratic reminders of the time when it was an independent city state, then a principality governed by Napoleon's sister, Elisa Baciocchi. There is the flamboyant Villa Torrigiani, Elisa's Villa Reale, surrounded by evergreen gardens of topiary madness, and Villa Bernardini, with its heart-shaped lawn. Some of the rental villas around Lucca are similarly grand, in spirit if not in scale. The tiny village of Vorno, for example, is surrounded by 17th-century villas used as summer houses by old Lucchese families, and has become a mini-culinary centre, with two cookery schools operating from sumptuously renovated mills and houses equipped with air conditioning, piped music, marble bathrooms and plush, Tuscan-themed interiors. Among the villas used by the cookery schools, Villa Controni best fitted the brief for a characterful home. It is also the most expensive villa of the eleven featured, with or without a full-time chef and the optional services of a sommelier (there is an extensive wine cellar used for wine tastings). The 17th-century villa was once home to Felice Matteucci, an inventor who patented the first internal combustion engine. It stands solid and proud behind iron gates; in front of them is a museum-worthy family chapel. Olive groves rise steeply to one side, while behind the house is an ancient camellia garden, fountains, and an old-fashioned swimming pool. There are six bedrooms, some with the original tiled floors and all differently furnished with antiques. There are plans to 'upgrade' Villa Controni (it has no air conditioning or central heating, for example); one hopes that not too many crooked lines will be straightened in the process. SLEEPS 12 comfortably; there is also a small single, suitable for a child, adjoining one of the doubles PRICE £10,780 per week, May-October, including maid service (other periods on request) CONTACT Chapters by Abercrombie & Kent (0845 070 0618; www.villa-rentals.com) FLY Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com) to Pisa (20km away)