History
The Rocca di Angera dominates the southern Lombard side of Lake Maggiore and is the perfectly harmonious result of five different buildings. Powerful architectures built between 1100 and 1600: the Castle Tower, the Scaligera Wing, the Visconti Wing (or Palazzo Ottoniano), the Giovanni Visconti Tower and the Borromeo Wing. It is impossible not to be impressed by the dimensions and power of this typical medieval fortress and by the grandiose elegance halls of the Good Roman, Gallery, the Ceremony,, Saint Charles and Borromean pomp, where immense canvases, portraits and furnishings recall to ancient times.
Do not miss the Hall of Justice, completely frescoed shortly after the battle of Desio in 1277 by an anonymous master who was named ''Master of Angera''. The frescoes in this important cycle, as well as the refined frescoed tapestries from mediaeval times, have been the subject of recent restoration work.
Inside the castle you can also visit the largest Doll and Toy Museum in Europe. Thousands of dolls, toys, robots, miniature houses from different eras and from different parts of the world have found welcoming hospitality in the ground floor spaces, populating them with intimate, tender tales of children's dreams, and the crystal clear notes of ancient music boxes.
The Scaligera Wing of the castle, reopened to the public after an important restoration work in 2018, has become a space devoted to exhibitions of contemporary art: projects of artistic creativity that take shape inside six rooms, in a stimulating dialogue between past and present.
The magnificent viewpoint on the lake is made unique by the Medieval Garden rebuilt in 2008 following a careful study based on illuminated manuscripts and period documents. A timeless place that evokes what could have been the original garden of the Rocca, where flowers and medicinal herbs follow the life cycles of nature and the seasons. An open-air museum where you can imagine what a garden was like in the Middle Ages.
