Villa Torri di Gattaia
Viuzzo di Gattaia 9
tel. +39 055 2001515
Charles Loeser, who was born in New York in 1864, studied history of art at Harvard and gained his degree in 1886. His fellow students included Bernard Berenson, William Randolph Hearst and George Santayana.
In 1888 Loeser took up residence in Florence, where he met and married young German pianist Olga Lebert Kaufmann. Villa Torri di Gattaia, the Florentine residence in which Loeser housed his important collection of Italian Renaissance art, soon became a popular haunt of scholars and art lovers from all over the world.
Music lovers were invited to the villa to attend concerts by the Lener String Quartet, with whom Olga often played. Loeser was also one of the first to recognise the artistic talent of Cézanne and to purchase his paintings, which he hung in the villa's private rooms.
Charles Loeser died while on a visit to New York in 1928, on the very eve of his return to Florence. He is buried in the Evangelical Cemetery "degli Allori".
His villa now houses the International School of Florence.
