Palazzo Paolina Bonaparte, Viareggio

Villa Pauline is a historic building, located in the city of Viareggio, that belonged to Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister.

The villa was built in 1822 on the seashore in front of the place where, according to legend, the sea returned the body of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who died in Viareggio that same year following a shipwreck; Pauline loved his poems very much and, it is said, chose the construction site for this very reason as well as for its proximity to the sea.

The villa, also called "The Refuge of Venus," was inhabited by the princess immediately after its construction in order to live close to the man she loved, musician Giovanni Pacini. A place of Pauline's retreat after the death of her brother Napoleon, it was a place of culture as the princess loved to surround herself with artists and musicians.

The villa, which with the expansion of the city over time has now become an integral part of it, has been reopened to the public after restoration and houses the "Civic Museums of Villa Paolina" and the picture gallery dedicated to contemporary art.