Puccini's fortune passed to his son's widow, then her brother, then reportedly a butler, before the son's illegitimate daughter won it in court

Giacomo Puccini left his villa at Torre del Lago, a villa at Viareggio and his royalties to his widow Elvira and their only son, Antonio. In 1925 Antonio turned the Torre del Lago villa into a museum, and Puccini was buried there in 1926. In 1929 Antonio had a daughter, Simonetta, with an unmarried partner. In 1933 he married Rita Dell'Anna. They had no children. Antonio died in 1946, and the Puccini estate went to Rita. Simonetta received nothing. Rita died in Monte Carlo in 1979 and left the estate to her brother, Livio Dell'Anna, a self-styled baron. When Livio died in December 1986, no will was found. Reports said his major-domo would inherit, and the estate later passed to the butler, according to Interlude. Simonetta sued. Dates conflict: the Christian Science Monitor reported she was recognized as a Puccini in 1972 and named rightful heir in spring 1987. Wikipedia says the fight began in 1980 and ended in 1995, when she was declared Antonio's daughter and given one-third of a reduced estate, with the rest staying with unrelated heirs. A second claimant, Nadia Manfredi, said her father was Puccini's illegitimate son. Simonetta opposed her, and the claim was not proven. Simonetta became owner of the villa in 1996 and founded the Fondazione Simonetta Puccini in 2005. She died in Milan in December 2017, aged 89. In 2026 the foundation owns the villa, the archive and the library, and reopened the restored garden in May 2025.