- Art & Culture
Villa della Porta Bozzolo
Villa Bozzolo, with its Rococo trompe-l’oeil and walls and Baroque decor, is one of Lombardy’s best-known “pleasure villas”.
Villa Bozzolo, with its Rococo trompe-l’oeil,frescoed vaulted ceilings and walls and Baroque decor, is one of Lombardy’s best-known “pleasure villas”, extravagant country residences built for their owners’ entertainment and refreshment.
The villa is built in the U shape typical of the time with an exquisite ceremonial central courtyard.
In the great hall and the gallery of the piano nobile visitors can admire some of the most representative paintings in the style popular in 18th-century Lombardy, the work of Milanese painters Salvione and Bosso.
The gardens are also justly famous, with four terraces descending the hillside linked by magnificent stone steps.
A feature of the park is its theatre, a vast, slightly sloping lawn delineated by an artificial fishpond.
Today the villa is managed by the FAI, the Italian National Trust, which has furnished the villa with authentic period pieces because the originals have been lost or stolen.
Italian Garden with Terraces and Fish Pool
The baroque terraces and fish pool in the park are the elements that make a visit to Villa Della Porta Bozzolo such a charming experience. The route develops over four stunning levels carved into stone, connected by a stairway decorated by balustrade, statues and fountains, which climbs the slope and gradually opens out onto a view that encompasses the landscape of Valcuvia. Step by step, the garden reveals its theatrical nature: a composition set out on different levels, where the visual axes and depth effects are designed to guide the visitor along their walk. The walk culminates in the Theatre, a large slightly sloping lawn, framed by an eighteenth-century fish pool: here water enters into the layout of the garden, helping to create a view towards the hill with Belvedere. Stone, greenery and baroque shapes mean that the park reveals all of the theatrical style of the old pleasure villas, designed to surprise anyone who walked there.
Open: March-November
Opening times: variable
Admission: charge; Children’s recreational activities
Opening hours
Open: March-November. Opening times: variable.
Admission: charge. Children’s recreational activities.
