Many conjectures have been made about the choice of Alfred Bernhard Nobel to move to San Remo, where he bought a villa in 1892; there was probably more than one reason, not least his health which required a milder and drier climate than that of Stockholm, where the Swedish chemist was born in 1833.
The first step was to instruct the architect Pio Soli to carry out the renovation of the villa, situated in Corso Cavallotti, along the avenue that leads to the City of Flowers coming from Imperia. Following the neo-Gothic style, Soli built a raised floor, totally changing the main roof of the house and eliminating those above the turrets. Despite the big changes, the architect took care to maintain the outward appearance of the villa. The interior was decorated in an exotic-colonial style, which was much in vogue in the late nineteenth century.
The park surrounding the house offers very valuable and rare plants such as the “Cupressuss Macricarpa”, imported directly from California, as well as olive and palm trees typical of Liguria. The result was a combination of aesthetic pleasure and scientific interest which Nobel found interesting. The villa and the magnificent park, his “nest” as he used to call it, were ready for the scholar’s relocation. And in the quiet of this nest, a few metres from the sea and from the cycle path which in recent years has taken the place of the railroad, Alfred Nobel died in 1896.
Nobel is primarily synonymous with the recognition of a career. Every year, in October in his Stockholm, prizes are awarded in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, medicine, economics and peace.
[Samirah Muran]
