21 June 2019
Villa Carlotta
Villa Carlotta lays on the western coast of the Como lake with an extension of 70.000 square meters and a wonderful view on the mountains and the villages of Bellano, Varenna, Bellagio.
The building was begun in 1690 by Giorgio Clerici, a Milanese banker, then the villa first passed in 1795 into the hands of marquis Giambattista Sommariva, a big business man at Napoleon's time, then it was bought by princess Marianne of Nassau, who gave it as a wedding present to her daughter Charlotte on the occasion of her marriage with Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen.
The Italian garden with its staircases, balustrades, fountain and the tunnel of citrus plants belongs to the Clerici period; to Sommariva's time date the masterpieces of art - still nowadays in the house museum (work of Canova, Hayez and Thorvaldsen) and the romantic park on the hill with grotesques long paths and sudden amazing views, whilst the landscape garden was developed on a large scale by the Saxen-Meiningen, to whom it owes its wide reputation.
The gardens, a very fertile land thanks to a special acid sediment of the ancient glaciers, are particularly famous for the rhododendrons and azaleas' flowering, consisting of over 150 different sorts.
Anyway every period of the year is worth of a visit: an itinerary between great camelias' hedges, ancient Cedars, Cypresses, Araucarias, Planes guides the visitor in a surprising series of meetings: the rock garden, the valley of the Ferns, the woods of ancient rhododendrons, the Bamboo garden, the green house with the exhibition of agricultural tools.
The Villa is a property of the Italian State and has been entrusted to the Villa Carlotta Foundation since 1927.
The building was begun in 1690 by Giorgio Clerici, a Milanese banker, then the villa first passed in 1795 into the hands of marquis Giambattista Sommariva, a big business man at Napoleon's time, then it was bought by princess Marianne of Nassau, who gave it as a wedding present to her daughter Charlotte on the occasion of her marriage with Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen.
The Italian garden with its staircases, balustrades, fountain and the tunnel of citrus plants belongs to the Clerici period; to Sommariva's time date the masterpieces of art - still nowadays in the house museum (work of Canova, Hayez and Thorvaldsen) and the romantic park on the hill with grotesques long paths and sudden amazing views, whilst the landscape garden was developed on a large scale by the Saxen-Meiningen, to whom it owes its wide reputation.
The gardens, a very fertile land thanks to a special acid sediment of the ancient glaciers, are particularly famous for the rhododendrons and azaleas' flowering, consisting of over 150 different sorts.
Anyway every period of the year is worth of a visit: an itinerary between great camelias' hedges, ancient Cedars, Cypresses, Araucarias, Planes guides the visitor in a surprising series of meetings: the rock garden, the valley of the Ferns, the woods of ancient rhododendrons, the Bamboo garden, the green house with the exhibition of agricultural tools.
The Villa is a property of the Italian State and has been entrusted to the Villa Carlotta Foundation since 1927.
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Things are connected by invisible bonds: you can't pluck a flower without disturbing a star.- Galielo Galilei - |
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