Villa Cicogna Mozzoni

Villa Cicogna Mozzoni di Bisuschio, in Varese Province, was designed and built during the Renaissance. The first building was created as a hunting lodge, erected before 1440. Riveting bear hunts took place from the Mozzoni family's Hunting Lodge when brown bears were still to be found in the surrounding mountains. One of these hunts remains memorable when Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, a guest of the family in 1476, was saved by Agostino Mozzoni and his dog from the jaws of a bear. Roughly a century later, around 1540, Ascanio Mozzoni decided to enlarge and embellish the Hunting Lodge to transform it into a pleasure villa, adding two wings. The frescoes, dating between 1550 and 1560, are attributed to the school of the Campi brothers from Cremona.

The gardens, which still preserve the original central part unaltered, were planted around 1560 by Ascanio Mozzoni, a cultured man who was certainly attentive to what was being built in and around the Medici and Papal villas during his trips to Florence and Rome from where he brought back ideas for restructuring the garden on seven levels. In 1580 Ascanio's daughter married Giovan Pietro Cicogna whose heirs are the present owners. The most attractive feature of the villa is its symbiosis with the garden, almost as if nature were invading the frescoed vaults of the loggias with vine tendrils and flower garlands. One of the most famous water stairways of the 16th century, featuring two ramps with a rivulet between, descends straight towards the reception halls of the Villa and there is a beautiful view from the upper floors.
The walled garden is a example of the formal Italian style, with box hedges, basins, fountains and a grotto with unusual water games.

The formal garden gradually blends into a romantic park as it rises towards the belvedere. A guided tour of the frescoed apartments on the piano nobile reveals furnishings and paintings from various eras.