A country house lived in by Giuseppe Verdi for 50 years has been the object of discord in a long-running squabble among the Italian composer’s heirs.

Verdi, whose compositions include La Traviata, Aida and Otello, built Villa Verdi on land he owned in Sant’Agata di Villanova, a hamlet near his home town of Busseto in the Emilia-Romagna region, in 1848. It was initially inhabited by his parents before Verdi moved in with his second wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, in 1851, remaining there until his death in 1901.