The villa at Sant’Agata is only a few kms from Busseto and is presently in the province of Piacenza and Verdi took the decision to transfer there because of the treatment reserved by the people of Busseto for Giuseppina Strepponi who was treated as a ‘concubine’. The villa was bought a few years earlier together with a vast farm property where he had placed his parents. Following a number of conflicts with his father over administrative matters which Verdi could not countenance, he placed his parents in a house in nearby Vidalenzo. Verdi undertook a wide ranging programme of enlargement and restoration both of the villa and the large park before moving in and taking up permanent residence except for their winter transfers to Genoa. It would be here that Verdi composed his later operas. The Villa is currently lived in by the Carrara Verdi family, descendants of the great Maestro.
