Villa Henraux

Villa Henraux is an important historical residence in Versilia. Built in 1897 in Art Nouveau style by the descendant of a Napoleonic officer turned marble entrepreneur, it was purchased in 1922 by Nello Pilli, son of the doctor and philanthropist Bettino. The latter, a lawyer and poet, hosted Giacomo Puccini, Guglielmo Marconi and Gabriele D'Annunzio among others; but above all, he turned it into his love nest with Ukrainian princess Gabriella Kourtsoh De Solva Sevrouk.

The villa is located on the Via d'Arni towards Seravezza, just past the Pratale bridge. It was a strategic position, on the only road connecting Versilia and Garfagnana, close to the Apuan Alps and near the Gothic Line construction site.

The SS in fact requisitioned it on 12 July 1944, installing the German command post there.

It then became a place of arrest, detention, torture for all local anti-fascists.

The main anti-partisan offensives of the summer were also directed from here, which also resulted in several civilian massacres.

On the 27th, as a plaque outside recalls, seven men who had been rounded up in Livorno were shot there.

On the 29th a shot was fired at the villa and in retaliation the Germans arrested four local civilians. They hanged two of them from light poles and shot the other two just below, near the bridge, which has since then been sadly known as the 'bridge of the hanged'.

The villa was heavily damaged by the passage of the bridge.

In 1949, it was bought by a Marian Congregation, which established a girls' boarding school there for orphans of fallen naval personnel.

In 2003 it was restored to its former glory and now houses a holiday home.