The villa was originally conceived and drawn by architect Giovanni Lazzarini (1769 - 1834) on behalf of Miss Mary Broderick, a noble Irish woman (the coats of arm of her family, placed over the entrance door is still visible nowadays).
Miss Broerick was born in Preston in 1771 and appointed Mr.Alessandro della Lena, who lately became the vice-director of the port of Hong Kong, her universal heir before passing away on March 20th, 1834.
The mansion was subsequently bought by the Stisted couple who became its second owners and who were regarded as the real "patriarchs" of the English colony in Bagni di Lucca and who fostered the building of the Anglican Church, of the Anglican Cemetery and of the "Circolo dei Forestieri".
Many famous people spent some time in the Villa and the list of their names is kept therein.
Miss Stisted who was a renowned poetess, used to write in the shade of her garden, surrounded by the quiet atmosphere and the amazing silence of the place; one of her best-known books is Mrs Henry Stisted, Letters from the By-Ways of Italy, London 1845 (kept in the Historical Archive in Lucca) Elisabeth Stisted was born in 1790 and died on July 11th, 1868 aged seventy-eigth.
Henry Stisted was born in 1786 in Folkestone Kent (England) and was one of the colonels of Her Majesty.
They were both buried in the Anglican Cemetery in Bagni di Lucca.