To introduce Villa Del Signore, renamed by Emanuele Del Signore into Villa La Cartiera to reconnect it to the place and origins, it is necessary to take a step back, more precisely in 1436, the year in which the mill, called del Coduro, belonging to the Commenda of San Leonardo of the order of the Knights of Malta, fed by the “biedale”, an ancient derivation channel of the river Magra still in use today which flows next to the Villa.

On 30 April 1822, some illustrious Pontremoli citizens such as Giovanni Pizzati, Silvio Venturini, Giovanni Simone Dosi, Francesco Antonio Formaini, together with Ferdinando Zacchia of Sarzana, bought the mill and various adjacent lands from Giovan Battista Frassinelli.

A few months later, on 14 December 1822, the purchasers of the aforementioned mill set up a company with the aim of setting up a paper mill in Pontremoli, and more precisely “to have paper manufactured according to the models that the aforementioned partners will like best”. This activity gave its name to the entire complex, still known today as “La Cartiera”.

Around 1830 the “Casa” was built, consisting of three floors divided into twenty-two rooms which, in 1849, was purchased by the Razzetti family together with the entire production complex and land.

In 1888 Giovanni Del Signore (1857-1929) returned to Italy from the United States to continue his entrepreneurial activities and bought the entire complex of the paper mill and the factory located further downstream where there is a pasta factory, two ovens, three mills and a crusher.

Giovanni Del Signore transformed the house and its park into a villa and built a sawmill and an ice factory at the paper mill, also powered by the hydraulic energy of biedal. He also built an innovative turbine plant capable of transforming part of the hydraulic energy into electricity to power the production activities and to provide light for the Villa and the four farms on the property.

The paper mill complex thus becomes an important factory and the Villa becomes the place from which to conduct business. Both Giovanni and his son Emanuele (1902-1983) subsequently carried out various interventions over the years to beautify the rooms and environments through pictorial decorations, renovating and enriching the interiors with furnishings and works of art. In the park surrounding the Villa, where there were already centuries-old trees including a Yew (Taxus Baccata) over 300 years old, various essences are introduced including the Pecan Walnut (Carya illinoinensis), the Cedar of Lebanon and the Atlantic Cedar, belonging to the Pinaceae family, as well as the creation of avenues and flowerbeds from which, today as then, it is possible to enjoy spaces of true contemplation.

Some of the production activities will go on for several years, until the Second World War, a period in which the Villa was occupied to become, together with the entire “Cartiera” complex, the headquarters of the German army headed by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Following the retreat of the Germans, the Villa was occupied for a short time by the Allies.

After the war, the production activities at the paper mill resumed for a few years, together with the agricultural and wine-growing activity through the Del Signore Agricultural Company, set up for the management and administration of the land and crops present there.

The Villa then passed to Franco Del Signore (1936-2018) and subsequently to his son Emanuele who opened it to the public.

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