Palazzo Pfanner

In 1660 in Lucca, near the walls, Palazzo Pfanner was built. The building was commissioned by the Moriconi, members of the Lucca merchant patriciate. Due to the economic failure, however, in 1680 the Moriconi were forced to sell the building to the Controni, also silk merchants who had risen to noble rank. The Controni family wanted to expand the building: at the beginning of 1700 they commissioned, certainly to Filippo Juvarra, the redevelopment of the rear garden; always in the same period they frescoed the vaults of the staircase and the interiors of the noble residence. The story of the Pfanner family is intertwined with the centuries-old history of the Palace in the mid-1800s. It was in fact Felix Pfanner, a brewer born in Hörbranz (Austria), but from a Bavarian family, who gradually bought the entire structure after having installed, starting from 1846, his brewery, one of the first in Italy. The historic Pfanner Brewery, located between the garden and the cellars of the Palazzo, closed in 1929. The Palazzo is still owned today by the Pfanner family, which, since 1995, has undertaken a demanding work of enhancement by promoting its restoration and opening to visitors.