Villa Carlotta was built in 1690 by the Marquis Giorgio Clerici: while the building is quite magnificent, it is actually quite simple when compared to other villas of the time. In 1795 it became the property of Giambattista Sommariva, a Napoleonic entrepreneur, great collector and a personal friend of Antonio Canova.

The villa, which houses an art collection of immeasurable worth, is divided into three floors (two of which are open to visitors). The site offers a view of the Bellagio peninsula along with the mountains that surround the lake. The town of Tremezzo overlooking the water with low houses with arcades in one of the most beautiful spots of the Lario. Behind the villa, narrow stairs lead up to the houses clinging to the mountain. From the front of the villa you can see the vast central basin of the lake, the promontory of Bellagio, the rocky Grigne Mountains and the villages scattered along the eastern shore.

At the end of the town, on the lake, is the sumptuous Villa Carlotta, named after the woman who was given the property as a wedding gift from her mother, Princess Marianne of Prussia. The villa, built in Baroque style in the early 1700s, has a beautiful terraced garden teeming with over 500 species of flowering plants that thrive in the area's mild climate. In the garden we can find pergolas of citrus, hedges of camellias, 150 varieties of azaleas (at their peak from April to May), rhododendrons, tropical plants, the valley of Australian ferns, palms, cedars, the garden of bamboo and secular coniferous trees. The greenhouse used in winter for citrus fruits has been converted into an interesting museum of old farming tools.