Lombardy: 127 Destinations For Discovering Art, History, and Beauty

Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of Palazzo Ducale (Bridal Chamber), Mantua 162

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New York (but in the Renaissance) Mantua In winter the area is peaceful and cloaked in fog, in summer the heat is so intense it feels like a sauna. The best time to visit is in the mid-seasons, which still exist in Mantua and have even helped the poetic success of the Literature Festival. Mantua, besieged by the Landsknecht mercenaries in 1630, for centuries hovered in a mysterious and intriguing limbo. Viewed from the lakes that receive water from the River Mincio, iit is an architectural epiphany that is like a New York between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but if you walk toward the square where the Palazzo Ducale stands—a building consisting of successive additions—you can glimpse the true soul of the architectural complexity that makes it the most beautiful Kremlin of Italy. As you stroll along its streets you circle around what is left of the ghetto, as well as a shop that has existed since the fifteenth century, at first an apothecary and now a fabric store. This is right next to the baptistery restored a century ago, a building that Matilda of Canossa may have had built, and an example of the first great Romanesque. It is a city of rounds and squares, perfectly summed up in the courtyard of Mantegna’s house, and not far from the designs of Leon Battista Alberti who, when it came to squaring a circle, was a master. Further forgotten when the duchy was abolished by the treachery of the Austrians, it had the good fortune of receiving as a gift from the Habsburg government the last masterpiece of Bibiena, the Teatro Scientifico, one of the most inspiring places in the world to hold conferences.

And all within walking distance.

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The boxed set of Maria Bellonci e la Camera degli Sposi, published by Tre Lune and Rai/ERI with a documentary

by Anna Zanoli from 1973, and dedicated to the Camera degli sposi (Bridal Chamber) in Palazzo Ducale, is splendid.

Maria Bellonci reads the pages of her Ritratto di famiglia (Family Portrait) in Camera picta (Painted Chamber).

from Milan: 118 miles

toward the South

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The Sweet Enchantment of Lake Garda Isola di Catullo Sirmione, Brescia In the springtime, when it still hasn’t been expunged by the hordes of vacationers from beyond the Alps, it’s still quite easy to get there. And it is certainly worth it. Sirmione is, after all, the easternmost tip of Lombardy on Lake Garda and a significant witness to history. The medieval Scaliger fortress has always been very popular with tourists. This is where their stroll begins along the peninsula that leads to the middle of the lake, where the warmth of the water guarantees a climate that can only also be found much farther south. No wonder the Ancient Romans liked it so much, and that it was chosen by the rich family of Catullus as the place in which to build a villa.

This is indeed where this curious poet grew up and died at the age of thirty. And it is also where he would spend the holidays, even after settling in Rome, and chat with Cicero. The family hosted many illustrious figures in its villa, even the great Julius Caesar. And the ruins are still open to the public today. These are what is left of a building that was later expanded with the taste of a Rome that knew a thing or two about holiday splendor. At the time, Sirmione was rivaled by the sweetness of Capri and the Phlegraean Fields, in spite of its freshwater fish. Further proof that Lombardy is more Roman than one might think, considering that not far from here, near Mantua, Virgil was born as well.

The remains of the Roman domus are called Grotte di Catullo, with a term that derives from the fifteenth-century tradition, when the ruins, before the excavations were carried out, appeared to be underground like Nero’s Domus aurea, whose decorations inspired the style of the late-Renaissance “grotesques.”

from Milan: 86.9 miles 86

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The Rediscovered Jewel of Lombard Baroque Style Santa Maria della Carità Brescia The splendid restoration work that was carried out with discreet skill, and funded by the Fondazione CAB, has reconstructed the past splendor of one of the finest jewels of Lombardy’s Baroque architecture. This is Santa Maria della Carità, also known as the church of the Buon Pastore (Good Shepherd), on Via dei Musei a Brescia, a gift to the city and to Italian culture in general. The building was designed by Agostino Avanzo in 1640, with an octagonal plan that reminds one of San Sebastiano in Milan, where everything sparkles and shines of the by-then self-assured Baroque style. Marble floors of the finest quality, and in the midst of everything a reproduction of the Santa Casa di Nazaret, whose original version is located in Loreto. One enters here through a portal that was recovered from the ancient Basilica of San Pietro de Dom which was demolished in order to build the new Brescia Cathedral; the two surviving columns in Egyptian marble are preserved inside, columns that in turn came from the spolia of the Roman period, when Brescia was a resplendent city with a wealth of architecture. Above the altar is a detached fresco of the Virgin of Charity in a frame by Sansovino. An all-encompassing whirl that was the cult of the post-Tridentine redeemed church. An altarpiece to the left is framed by the dizzying beauty of spiral columns with gilding, and the central altar closes off the house of the poor, with the sculptural exaltations of seventeenth-century glory. This was once the heart of the Pious Institute of the Penitent.

Of particular artistic interest is the floor, which is characterized by elaborate and complicated polychrome inlaid marble. Resembling a “floral carpet made of stone,” it has remained almost intact. Designed by Agostino Maggi, it was set by the Rezzato stone-layers in 1755.

from Milan: 62 miles

87 toward the Northeast

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Facade of Cappella Espiatoria, Monza 100

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A Clod of Soil Commemorating King Umberto Expiatory Chapel Monza Guido Cirilli may not be one of the best known architects of the early twentieth century, yet we’ve all seen his impressive work in Piazza Venezia, Rome, built for the company Assicurazioni Generali and symmetrical to the fifteenth-century Palazzo Venezia.

Cirilli was a student of the more famous Giuseppe Sacconi, and he in turn trained someone who unquestionably became more famous than him: Carlo Scarpa. But Cirilli’s work must have been to the liking of many in his day, for we owe to him the expiatory chapel on the main avenue that leads to Villa Reale, a chapel that was built in memory of the regicide of Umberto I on the very site where the King was shot dead. Though the aesthetic and architectural quality of the monument may seem rather unconvincing, its historical meaning is highly significant: it is a large column overlooking a small entrance below a revival in the Monumental Cemetery style of Michelangelo’s Pietà, this one created by Lodovico Pogliaghi, an artist who left his mark in many of Italy’s most famous cemeteries. The interior is more mystical and is illuminated by onyx windows and alabaster crosses. Over one hundred feet tall, it is topped by a bronze pillow on which the scepter, the collar badge of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, and the Savoy crown will forever rest. The wrought-iron railing is the work of Alessandro Mazzucotelli and it is sublime. Preserved inside the monument is a clod of soil soaked in royal blood.

King Umberto I of Savoy was assassinated in Monza on the evening of July 29, 1900, by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci. A few years after the regicide, Benito Mussolini— then a young exponent of the revolutionary Left—visited this monument and used a sharp-edged stone to carve the words “Monumento a Bresci.”

from Milan: 12.4 miles 101

toward the Northwest

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Porta dei Leoni Rossi, Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo 58

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Tuscan Atmospheres and Lotto’s Intarsias Upper Bergamo Bergamo Strolling through Bergamo Alta... Who knows for what mysterious reason Upper Bergamo has such a Tuscan flavor. We can be sure the Tuscans don’t know that, just as we can safely say that the elegant Bergamasque accent has little in common with the guttural sound of the Etruscan language. Upper Bergamo is a wonder that cannot be missed, and that you can discover by simply wandering around and observing everything there is to see. The heart of it all is the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a miracle of assorted styles. From the outside you can easily read the Lombard style of its architecture; erudite, mature Romanesque that is at once frugal and majestic. The portals are an anthology of images in stone, accentuated by columniferous lions made from red Verona marble. But the style changes completely inside the church, where visitors can view the made-over Baroque according to the dictates of the Counter Reformation. The Fantonis, a family of woodcarvers, did some of their finest work here. But the most touching part of all is what was made before the Counter Reformation, expressed in the intarsias designed by Lorenzo Lotto for the high-backed chairs of the choir. Combined here in an entirely free Renaissance way are the initiatory rites, the alchemical mysteries, and the inspiration of faith, in a cycle of images that need to be contemplated deeply.

The three miles of walls still embrace the ancient profiles of towers and bell towers of this city, which is made up of two distinct urban contexts: the Città Bassa (Lower City), the pulsating heart of commercial life, and the Città Alta (Upper City), which contains Piazza Vecchia, described by Le Corbusier as “one of the most fascinating squares in the world.”

The third Sunday of every month an antiques and brocantage market is held there.

from Milan: 36 miles 59 toward the Northeast

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An Eighteenth-Century Gem Villa del Balbianello Lenno, Como Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini, a member of the well-known family of Marquises from Milan and Monza, was quite a fellow. At the age of nineteen, he had followed his uncle, an apostolic nuncio, to Paris, and it was at the worldly and erudite court of Louis XI that he found his true vocation: a taste for letters. Once he returned to Italy he had two villas built in Monza, Mirabello, and Mirabellino, where he established the headquarters of the circle of his friends and members of the Arcadia, some of the finest writers and intellectuals of his day and age. Today, the two buildings in Monza are terribly rundown, so Durini’s third residence, the one he had built toward the end of his life, is undeniably the most becoming, most Arcadian, of them all.

Set on a small promontory overlooking Lake Como near Lenno, the landscape architecture and garden blend into an aesthetic delight that became an example for the entire world. The house once hosted Giuseppe Parini, who was still an emerging writer, as well as the crème de la crème of the Lombardy intellectuals who were the vanguard of European thinking. It has been luckier than its sisters in Monza, as Guido Monzino bequeathed it, along with an endowment for its upkeep, to FAI, which watches over it lovingly and opens it to the public. A dream for all seasons.

A much sought-after film location, several international movies have been made here, including: A Month by the Lake directed

by John Irvin (1995), Star Wars Episode II—Attack of the Clones by George Lucas (2002), and Casino Royale by Martin Campbell (2006), the first movie starring Daniel Craig as James Bond.

from Milan: 46.6 miles 132

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Elegance and Courtesy in a Pleasure Villa Villa della Porta Bozzolo Casalzuigno, Varese There are some historic places where what counts most of all is not the excellence of each single work, the architect’s world renown, or the glory of the families that passed through them, but, rather, the atmosphere and the flavor that lingers. This is the case of Villa della Porta Bozzolo in Casalzuigno, a sweet-sounding toponym, certainly more interesting than the name of its owners who, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, turned it into a marvel of elegance and taste. This is a typical pleasure villa—not just for those who stayed there in the summertime as did the Venetians, but for those who lived there all year round, as did the patricians of Lombardy—and its architectural structure converses perfectly with the garden and the horizon line of the surrounding hills. Moreover, the terraced hillside—similar to the much more basic one that was implemented by the Varesotto winemakers—is articulated in the manner of an Aristotelian Binocular as far as the clearing of the pre-Alpine woods that complete the view, and continues to unfold with the other perspective that instead runs in the direction of the church. The interior of the villa never disappoints its visitors: the fact that it was a year-round permanent residence is visible in the impressive fireplaces which are usually missing in Venetian summer villas.

The wall decorations toy with that exquisite horror vacui that the furnishings do not undermine. A gentle, airy site, this one also run

by FAI.

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Also located in the villa gardens, besides the aristocratic and spectacular Baroque garden with a “theater,” are several rustic outbuildings, witnesses to a past in which the villa was the heart of the agricultural activity in the area. Visitors can see the monumental sixteenth-century wooden grape press, olive mill, old loom, and a cellar with the original barrels.

from Milan: 46.6 miles

toward the Northwest

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In Upper Bergamo, the Memory of a Warrior Colleoni Chapel Bergamo It has been suggested before in this book that the visitor should climb this hill, called the Berg in Alemannic-Lombard dialect, which overlooks the vast plain, that is to say, Upper Bergamo. This time, however, do so to take a look at Colleoni Chapel, one of the most poignant masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. Bartolomeo, a mercenary commander who defeated his fellow condottiere Braccio da Montone, came from a family of warriors that in the thirteenth century had already made its mark under Emperor Frederick II with an epic ancestor whose name was Sozzon de’ Coglioni. He had left the family a coat of arms which contained no fewer than three noble attributes, “Duos colionos albos in campo rubeo de supra et unum colionum rubeum in campo albo infra ipsum campum rubeum.” He too had become a condottiere, one of those formidable self-made men ready to be hired for the purposes of waging war just as a freelance manager might be hired by a company today. Verrocchio made a noble statue of him, which is now in Venice. A worthy example for the people of today, he was good at managing his power as well as his sword, and he did so with taste and intelligence. He built himself a mausoleum in Humanistic style, and ordered that it be placed right next to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a fine example of the forceful development of the late fifteenth-century taste that underpins the Renaissance. Family, taste, and guts all rolled into one, which should give today’s heroes something to muse over.

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The construction of the chapel began when the cathedral sacristy was torn down, despite the initial plea of the church rectors to save it. Nonetheless, they gave their permission for it to be razed so that the mausoleum could be built. The doubt remains that the impetuous condottiere, tired of the bureaucratic delays, may have sped up the enterprise manu militari.

from Milan: 36 miles

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Northern portal of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and Colleoni Chapel, Bergamo 69 toward the Northeast

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Fun-Loving Pirro Villa Litta Lainate, Milan The Milanese hinterland isn’t one of the most attractive places, everyone knows that. The mention of some of its locations, for instance, Lainate, conjures up the image of a highway exit and the chaos and flow of urban design that has glued one town to another in such disarray that just the thought of it is enough to put you in a bad mood.

And yet small miracles both aesthetic and human can be found there as well: one of these is Villa Litta di Lainate, tastefully refurbished and publicly owned, with a formidable nympheum of historical interest kept alive and in working order, thanks to an association of volunteers. Pirro I Visconti Borromeo had the villa built in 1585. He was a relative of the austere Saint Carlo and the learned Federico, but no doubt he was more fun-loving than either one of them.

Pirro surrounded his sculptures, a prestigious collection of artworks, with grottoes and ravines, and he would also command water to squirt between the legs of his guests and probably those of the local peasant girls, whose thirst for summer was thus quenched. Although these noble luxuries are usually imagined as having to do with central Italian lust, they instead cast over an austere Lombardy an unexpectedly agreeable atmosphere.

Stendhal described it in Rome, Naples and Florence, 1817: “It is exceedingly unwise to go walking alone in the gardens of Lainate; the park is mined with concealed spouts and fountains, expressly fashioned to produce a fine soaking for the unwary visitor. As soon as I placed my foot upon the lowest step of a certain staircase, no fewer than six jets of water were set off in a great spurt between my legs.”

from Milan: 12.4 miles 140

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Corridor with water games, Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta, Lainate, Milan 141

toward the Northwest

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Working-class town, detail of the castle, Crespi d’Adda, Bergamo 72

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The Social Village of the “Sciur Padrun” Crespi d’Adda Bergamo Once upon a time there was a cotton textile industry here run by an entrepreneur. He was known as “Mister Landlord,” the one “with his nice white pants”, who wouldn’t, as the song goes, fora li palanchi—get his money out—for the protesting female workers. And yet he had the philanthropic idea to use his money to create an entire working-class town. That town was Crespi d’Adda. Cristoforo Benigno Crespi was born in Busto Arsizio in 1833. He moved to the Bergamasca area to set up his factory, purchasing about 200 acres of farmland between the towns of Capriate San Gervasio and Canonica d’Adda. He opened a textile factory there, and around it he had a residential village built for his workers, one of the earliest examples in Europe of social urban planning, and now a wonderful record of industrial archaeology. It had all that was needed, from shops to schools.

Everything was perfectly arranged and organized. However, still not satisfied, Crespi decided to build a cemetery there too: the owner at the center, the clerks (who still wore a white collar in those days) arranged all around him, and, lastly, the army of workers under his dominion for eternity. He hired Gaetano Moretti, the Modernist Expressionist architect who had created the hydroelectric plant on the River Adda, to design the cemetery.

All of their energies were combined. Today, this town certainly deserves a visit, and UNESCO has even listed it as a world heritage site.

This is one of the best preserved examples of an industrial working-class town in the world. The former cotton factory which functioned until December 2003, is now subject to a restoration plan, while the hamlet is still inhabited, and the cemetery, under the tutelage of the local community, is still active.

from Milan: 24.8 miles

73 toward the Northeast

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The Enchantment of the Lake Villa Fogazzaro Roi Oria Valsolda, Como Imagine a delightful villa overlooking the freshwater of a lake surrounded by a magnificent landscape; such a place will probably also have a garden that may not be large, but will definitely be elegant. This garden will probably surround a house that is situated so close to the rocks that the harbor and boat ready for sailing can be reached directly from its cellar.

This was the home where the poet Fogazzaro lived, followed by his heirs, who bequeathed it to FAI as an example of aesthetics and the quality of life. The villa is located in Valsolda, a portion of the Italian territory that borders on Lake Lugano, and its atmosphere might easily serve as a model for anyone imagining the ideal vacation home. The kitchen is original, and it still contains all the utensils needed for a life that is at once easy and frugal. The small library is also quite uplifting, stimulating the desire to read and think. The parlors and sitting rooms are ready to receive guests, and the furniture is comfortable and tasteful. The bedrooms are original and it’s easy to imagine the inhabitants taking a nap on the tall and narrow eighteenthcentury beds after lunch. Everything is ambience here; from each of the rooms the view is enchanting. Sometimes you happen upon a small terrace with four chairs around a table that makes you feel like idling there for hours, and when you finally get back home you might feel the urge to read Malombra or Piccolo mondo antico.

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In Piccolo mondo antico there is the tragic death of the young Maria, nicknamed Ombretta by her uncle, who would often sing her the aria Ombretta sdegnosa del Missipipì—“Non far la ritrosa ma baciami qui”—from Gioacchino Rossini’s The Touchstone.

from Milan: 57.7 miles

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Inimitable Azaleas Villa Taranto Verbania, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola Emile Gallé, the renowned French poet and glassmaker, traveled to these parts in the early twentieth century. He came here as the person in charge of a floriculture company in his native town of Nancy, crossing the Swiss Valais as far as Lake Maggiore, and perhaps even stopping to pay a visit to the most sophisticated sculptor of his times, the Russian Prince Paul Troubetzkoy. However, Gallé’s final destination was the Verbano floricultural society, and what particularly drew his attention were the many flower species that Verbania had to offer. The current layout of the gardens is the brainchild of a Scottish captain named Neil McEacharn, who planted his dream on almost fifty acres of land. In 1931 McEacharn had purchased the land and the villa from a British noblewoman who had married into the Italian Arborio Mella family— also famous for a special variety of rice. This gave rise to his design for terraced gardens. McEacharn had an uncle who was appointed Prince of Taranto by Napoleon, so the house with the gardens was given that same exotic name. It brought him good luck, for today that large park, which after almost a century has become a unique example, perfectly combines Mediterranean and sub-Alpine flora, and the azalea season in the springtime might turn a visit into one of the most inimitable experiences in all of Europe.

From the users of Theneeds, a website featuring people “who have lived and worked in 35 different countries,” Villa Taranto is the most beautiful garden in the world. It is ranked ahead of Versailles in France, Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens in Hampshire, and the Gardens at the Cloisters in New York. Villa d’Este in Tivoli and Sanssouci Palace Gardens in Potsdam rank “only” seventeenth and eighteenth, respectively!

from Milan: 65.2 miles 137

toward the Northwest

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