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Villa Bosniasky - Pisa in Tuscany

De Bosniascky came from Poland: when he arrived in Italy in 1873, where he decided to settle, he immediately chose San Giuliano since he fell in love with the rocky and impracticable Monte Castellare, thus opening a secret and mysterious dialogue with that wild place. After retiring to his villa, he decided to immerse his spirit and philanthropic thought in a perfect harmony between nature and landscape, thus creating his own world. In this dry land, scented with brooms and other aromas, De Bosniascky gave himself up to pleasure, did his daily business and cultivated his interests in research, culture and science. Furthermore, De Bosniascky was fond of fossils he kept in the underground rooms of the villa. Some furniture was purposely built to keep the finds and tables were arranged to examine the samples.

It was a private museum, open to a few friends and scholars only, a kind of sacred place, a reliquary. His job as a scholar, researcher and scientific promoter led De Bosniascky to meet illustrious professors of the University of Pisa, such as Giuseppe Meneghini, professor of geology and mineralogy, with whom he made friends. Scholars and researchers urged him to strengthen his relationships with university and take part in conferences, congresses and meetings which led him to spread his researches. On the occasion of the Geological Congress of 1885, which took place in Lucca, De Bosniascky took the opportunity to exhibit his paleontological collection in the premises of the Casino delle Terme di San Giuliano, thus attracting the attention of the scientific world and of several local visitors, too. De Bosniascky died in 1921 and his rich paleontological collection, inherited by his friends, the Antonini brothers, was sold to the University of Pisa. The skeleton of the villa, as well as the ruins of the Castellare, is what remains of the villa and attests that time goes by wiping out everything.

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