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The Villa yesterday
The Villa today

 
In the Villa yesterday “My Nest”
Mr Key described Nobel quite different from the way he appears in his letters probably because he was talking to a stranger and also because he had already recovered physically and psychologically. Buying and furnishing a villa of such an extent was tiring, most of all because Nobel did it by himself. The origin of the villa goes back to the second half of XIX century, exactly at the end of 1870, when the chemist Pietro Vacchieri from Rivoli bought in the eastern part of the town some allotments and built on them a beautiful house that” for its elegance and classic forms follows the severest rules of art” This is the description given by a guide book of Sanremo in 1875 when Pietro Vacchieri, already trying to reduce his debts because of the expenses on the house and the small villa nearby and willing to dedicate himself to “industry”, as the guide says, sold his property with a legal transaction dated 28 July 1874 to cavalier Lazzaro Patrone.

Villa Nobel, interno dell'epoca.
 

Villa Nobel, interno dell'epoca.

The relevant transcription says that “the same  goods have been sold by Mr Pietro Vacchieri with a right of redemption , to Mr Paolo Sconnio, act dated  7 April  1874”.

Precisely  this act contains a detailed description of the property ”the entrance of which has an elegant iron gate that opens on the public road “.

The property is enclosed by  high walls on 4 sides  and in the lower part it is crossed by the Liguria  railway with 2 level crossings; it is an area of 6.099,10 square meters and it has a  terraced garden with plants, gas candlesticks, 2 wells with pumps representing 2 rural monuments. In the upper part of the property there are 2 houses: one  is small , made of bricks and wooden trunks with a ground floor and a first floor; the other is larger, with the ground floor, first and second floors and a loft.

In the lowest part on the eastern side, there are the stables, the shed and the saddle room, made of panels with windows  and doors and the roof is zinc plated.

 

In the same act one reads:

All furniture , mirrors, carpets, pictures and any other object that at present date are  present in the small house of the trunks, as it is called, and in the other house nearby are part of this sale.

Therefore in 1874 the villa was completely furnished, surrounded with a beautiful garden, full of precious exotic plants among them “the dactiliferae palm tree and the banana tree spontaneously ripen their fruits”.

Accurate information on the furnishing of the villa and on the arrangement of the numerous rooms and their destinations are given in the inventory made by the notary Balestreri,dated 2 August 1887, following to the death of commendatore Lazzaro Patrone.

The difficulty of the distribution of the estate of commendatore Lazzaro Patrone made the heirs deliberate  an auction  sale   of the properties together with the furniture described in the inventory.

The relating notice explains the sales conditions that ”after the partition carried out in the survey of 31 December 1888" consists of 3 allotments.

On 26 of May 1890, the son of the departed commendatore Patrone, Mr Lazzaro Fausto, buys the entire property from all the legally entitled and one year after, with act dated 2 April 1891, with notaries deed , he sells the first allotment, or Villa Miraflores, to Mrs Rosa Cassini, wife of the solicitor Rossi and with act dated 25 April 1891, the remaining part or Villa Patrone to  Mr Alfred Nobel, resident in Paris 59, rue Malakoff: The price agreed is 200.000 lire for the house and of 10.000 lire for the furniture and the furniture effects sold.


 
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Ultimo aggiornamento 12 marzo 2004