Polo Museale Villa Asquer (Villa Asquer Museum Centre)

When you are in Tuili, you can have a tour of the beautiful Villa Asquer, a fine example of an early 19th-century building.

The Villa was supposedly designed by the architect Gaetano Cima and inherited by the town’s doctor, Dr Marquis Don Gavino Asquer Pes (1891-1970), a nobleman from a feudal family who was Mayor of Tuili several times and who lived in town as he had inherited lots of lands and the villa in front of the parish church of St Peter from his uncle Emanuele Pes Ripoll, Marquis of San Vittorio. His figure is still fondly remembered by the local residents.

The Villa was built on one of the highest points in town and looks out onto the square opposite the Church of St Peter the Apostle.

Don Gavino Asquer married a noblewoman, Donna Cicita Aimerich (1877-1960), from Laconi, with whom he had a son, Emanuele. Don Gavino, as well as being the town’s doctor, owned plenty of land, olive groves and fields sown with wheat, forage and other produce that, once tilled, were taken to the Villa to be processed and stored in the family’s pantry or sold.

The building is actually split into two areas. The front section houses the manor house, with the Oil Museum, an exhibition of farming tools, including the oil mill of the Asquer family, and the Museum of Musical Instruments. The barns used as shelter for farming equipment and the stables were at the back of the Villa, instead. There was even a home cinema (Don Gavino was a film buff) which has now been replaced with a conference room.

The entire estate of Villa Asquer is now owned by the Municipality of Tuili that restored it and converted part of the house into the two museums above, while the back section, which is detached from the large courtyard at the centre where the old trades used to be carried out, has been let out.