«The courtyard of Palazzo Pfanner seems built to host performances with its theatre-like staircase and the entrance hall with its vaulted ceiling that fades away in the distance with the pleasant view of a cool verdant garden».

So wrote the French essayist  and writer André Suarès (1868-1948) during his brief stay in Lucca in the early 20th century. It is impossible to say he was wrong. The architectural structure of Palazzo Pfanner is indeed surprising and unique in the urban context. The building and garden stand magnificently in a vast baroque scenario a few steps away from the 16th century city walls and from the more austere aristocratic large houses that frame the damp, dark medieval alleys of Lucca's old town centre.