Parco del Castello Malingri di Bagnolo

The Palazzo Malingri Park, listed among the Italian historical parks, is particularly seductive in May due to the flowering of large rhododendron and azalea bushes that create spots of color at the foot of ancient trees.
Created at the end of the seventeenth century as a formal park and redesigned at the beginning of the 19th century in the romantic style of the English parks, it has always been loved and cared in particular by the Malingri Countesses.
Over the past 40 years, the current owners Aimaro and Consolata Oreglia d'Isola, following the family tradition, have particularly taken care of the landscape aspect with the intent to always have different effects of color according to the seasons and the blooms, planting new flowering shrub species and varieties such as camellias (japonica and sasanqua) and extending the collections of existing acidophilous species: rhododendrons, azaleas, kalmie, Hydrangee and many others, in the undergrowth anemones, periwinkles, violets, bulbous plants and hundreds of hostas.

Every year a selection of new specimens of flowering shrubs are planted, to expand existing collections, researching them from nurseries specialized in Italy and abroad, in some cases transplanting rare specimens ceded by other historical parks, such as the original Camellias of the Villa Anelli on Lake Maggiore. Every year the dead and damaged trees and shrubs are replaced and replanted, and the phytotherapeutic treatments necessary for atmospheric and climatic damage, which more and more frequently affect a delicate biological balance, are carried out.

In 2017 the baroness Consolata thought of connecting the Park and the Fortress planting a hundreds of rhododendrons that will, over the years, cover the hill under the Fortress walls, creating the rhododendron path. The choice of the varieties were made with landscape and coloristic intent, dominating the whites and the reds in the upper part of the hill, colors of the family crest, lower and on more shaded shades from dark purple to pink. The park is interesting under a botanical profile, but also offers points of historical and artistic interest to visitors who can explore the Feudal Malingri di Bagnolo complex discovering the Palazzo with the 15th century frescoes of the façade and the chapel of S.Sebastiano (Giovanni Canavesio), walking through the ancient woods and enjoying an ancient agricultural landscape and untouched nature to get to the Fortress of the years 1000 with its triple walls, towers and beautiful frescoed rooms