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The Visconti Borromeo Litta villa dates back to the end of the XVI century. It was built by Pirro I Visconti Borromeo to thoroughly manage the properties that the family had already purchased in that area. Initially created a simple country house, it was soon transformed into a representation palace, constantly improved and upgraded with exquisite craftsmanship.
The villa was later acquired by the Litta family and since 1970, it has been a property of the Municipal Administration.

Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta is, therefore, the result of different building steps: the most significant is that of the XVIII century: the exposed brick structure and the C-shaped layout are still visible today. The whole estate us also rich in water features and caves: probably among the most evocative in Lombardy.

The garden is divided into three areas: the Italian garden, the English garden and a place dedicated to vegetables that use to house some XIX century greenhouses.

THE GARDENS

The Italian garden develops alongside the villa. In the middle, it features the water lily pond which is one of the most interesting decorations of the whole complex. It is a late Renaissance work, restored and modified in the XVIII century, which features a series of sections with artificial caves decorated with two-colour mosaics. The water features placed in the central part are still working. The garden path ends with an exedra. Next to this area, there’s a freely arranged English garden.

Today, few documents remain of that area thoroughly dedicated to cultivation. Several valuable and evocative paintings created by Carlo Bossoli in 1852 (four views, tempera on paper, Varese, Pinacoteca Civica), corroborates the existence of large greenhouses in this part of the estate. They were located between two octagonal bulwarks, in front of the garden, along four axes with the fountain of Neptune in the centre. Those were low greenhouses, crossed by a staircase in the middle which allowed to reach another part of the estate. In the mid-XIX century, they were decorated with a series of most beautiful vases placed at the same distance.
The greenhouse openings were obtained with iron frames and bars to stop the windows in fixed positions – a typical technique of the late XIX century.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)