Welcome cocktail
Welcome Cocktail and Early Tuscan dinner
San Micheletto Cloister
Via San Micheletto 3, Lucca.
(conference venue)
from 6.15pm to 8pm on Tuesday
Conference banquet
Conference banquet
Palazzo Pfanner
Via degli asili 33, Lucca
on Wednesday night (8.15pm)
The construction of Palazzo Pfanner dates back to 1660. It was the Moriconi family, members of the Lucca merchant nobility that commissioned its building. Ruined down by bankruptcy the Moriconi family was forced in 1680 to sell the building to the Controni family, silk merchants who had risen to the nobility. The Controni family extended the building: about 1686 they presided over the building of the grand monumental staircase, presumably on the plans of the Lucca architect Domenico Martinelli, active especially in the European capitals of Vienna and Prague; at the beginning of the 18th century they commissioned, in all probability, Filippo Juvarra to upgrade the garden behind; still in the same period they entrusted local 'quadraturisti' painters with decorating the vaults of the staircase and the inside of the aristocratic residence. It is in the residence that the Controni family gave hospitality to Prince Frederick of Denmark who was making a Grand Tour of Italy.
The Pfanner family became involved with the century-old history of the Palazzo Pfanner towards the middle of the 19th century. It was indeed Felix Pfanner (1818-1892), a local brewer from Hörbranz (Austria), but from a Bavarian family, who progressively acquired the entire structure after having set up his brewery there in 1846, the first in the Duchy of Lucca and one of the first in Italy. The historic Pfanner Brewery, the pleasant production site and beer garden situated between the garden and the cellars of the Palazzo, closed in 1929.
Due to its charming architectural features, Palazzo Pfanner has been chosen several times as the location for the making of films, among which Il Marchese del Grillo by Mario Monicelli (1981), with Alberto Sordi and Paolo Stoppa, and Portrait of a Lady by Jane Campion (1996), starring Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich.
Student dinner
Student Dinner
Trattoria "Da Giulio" in Pelleria
Via delle Conce 45, Lucca
on Wednesday night (8.30pm)
Trattoria "Da Giulio" in Pelleria is a very popular restaurant in the heart of Lucca serving traditional Tuscan specialities.
