Villa Isnard stands on via Sant'Ilario in Cascina and is also known locally as Villa Steiner. It was built in the early twentieth century at the wish of Maria Isnard, a French heiress who had married the doctor Aurelio Bianchi in 1892 and came to live here. The villa was frequented by many noble families of Pisa and also by European nobility.
What to see
The building does not resemble the houses around it: its style is that of the villas of the Côte d'Azur, with a steep slate-coloured roof, long narrow windows and a central turret. The interiors were elegantly furnished, with a Japanese drawing room, an Egyptian bedroom and a hall of mirrors.
Among the villa's visitors was the young Giuseppe Cei, born in Cascina in 1889, whom the Bianchi-Isnard couple set on his studies. Cei became an engineer and an aviation pioneer: on the first day of 1911 he gained his pilot's licence in Paris, where he made a name for himself by flying around the Eiffel Tower.
Visiting
Today the villa is abandoned and cannot be visited. It is mentioned in some books on the stories and mysteries of Tuscany.
Our editors' tip
Cei died young: the aviator was killed on 28 March 1911 at Puteaux, near Paris, when his biplane crashed, and was buried in the family chapel in the cemetery of Cascina, which has also named a street after him.
