VILLA DELLA PORTA BOZZOLO – FAI

In the quiet Valcuvia, a few kilometres from Varese and Lake Maggiore, stands the 16th-century country residence of the Della Porta family, wealthy local landowners with humble origins and ambitions of nobility. A residence with an agricultural soul with rustic cottages, a wine press and wine cellar and a spinning mill for silkworms. A typical 'villa di delizia' in the 18th century, renovated on the occasion of the wedding between Giovan Angelo III Della Porta and the Milanese countess Isabella Giulini. Today, you can therefore enter their summer residence: salons and parlours, galleries and bedrooms with lively frescoes with illusionistic painted architecture, myths and allegories, triumphs of coloured flowers even on the doors, small masterpieces of Rococo style. There are few but precious original furnishings, such as a four-poster bed in yellow silk damask and the wardrobes in the study for the family archive; the rest comes from various donations to the FAI and contributes to recreating the atmosphere of a noble 18th-century residence. The view from the windows is sublime over the monumental Italian-style garden: an original set of stone-carved terraces that climb up the hill to the large green lawn of the 'theatre', with the fishpond and a steep path to the panoramic belvedere. The villa, saved in the 19th century by Senator Camillo Bozzolo who left family mementos and a rich library, has regained its ancient splendour thanks to the FAI restoration and is still today a delightful corner where one can spend an entire day, between the park, a visit to the interiors and a stop at the "I Rustici" restaurant.