The Villa del Balbianello is a villa in the comune of Lenno (province of Como), a province in the north of the Lombardy region of Italy, overlooking Lake Como. It is located on the tip of the small wooded peninsula of Dosso d'Avedo on the western shore of the south-west branch of Lake Como, 1500 meters east from the Isola Comacina. The villa is famous for its elaborate terraced gardens.
A Franciscan monastery had existed on the tip of the peninsula of Dosso d'Avedo since the 13th century. The two towers which remain on the property are the remnants of the campanili of the monastery's church.
After failing in his attempts to buy the nearby Isola Comacina, Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini purchased this property in 1785. [1] In 1787, he converted the monastery structure into a villa for use during the summer and added a loggia, which allowed viewers to obtain two different panoramas of the lake.
After the cardinal’s death in 1796, the villa passed to his nephew, Luigi Porro Lambertenghi. During his ownership, the villa became a center for republican activity and meetings, where Italian patriots and Carbonari met. Among Lambertenghi's guests at the villa was the writer Silvio Pellico, who tutored Lambertenghi's sons. In 1820, Pellico was arrested by the Austrian government, and Lambertenghi was forced to move to Belgium, where he was supported by the Arconati-Visconti family. [1] Lambertenghi subsequently sold the villa to his friend, Giuseppe Arconati Visconti. [2]
Visconti made improvements to its gardens and the loggia. To this day, the balustrade in front of the church bears the Visconti emblem of a serpent with a man in its mouth. During the period of Visconti ownership, the villa hosted politicians and writers Giovanni Berchet, Alessandro Manzoni, Giuseppe Giusti, as well as the artist Arnold Böcklin. The gradual decline of the family resulted in a neglect of the villa for more than 30 years.
Just prior to World War I, American businessman Butler Ames saw the villa for the first time. He made an offer to purchase it from the Arconati Visconti family and was initially rejected. He kept returning with ever-larger cash offers, until in 1919 he was successful in obtaining ownership. [3] Ames renovated the villa and its garden.
In 1974, Ames's heirs sold the villa to businessman and explorer Count Guido Monzino (leader of the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest). While Monzino left the exterior essentially unchanged, he had the interior of the villa completely re-decorated, installing artifacts acquired on his expeditions as well as important pieces of English Georgian and French antique furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries, Beauvais tapestries, French boiseries and Oriental carpets. After the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978 by the Red Brigade, Monzino became worried about his safety, and added a system of hidden passages, linking parts of the property. [4]
Monzino died in 1988 and left the villa along with most of the Dosso d'Avedo and an endowment to pay for maintenance, to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI), the National Trust of Italy. Its grounds now form part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani. Today, the Villa del Balbianello is the most visited among the 52 FAI properties with over 135,000 visitors in 2019. [5]
In 2016, the Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano commenced a €413,000 project to restore and improve the villa’s jetty, install new signage, new security, emergency lighting and fire prevention systems. The villa's existing diesel fuel system will be replaced with a modern heating system, new visitors bathrooms and drainage systems, and improvements to the bookshop and ticket office space. [6]
In November 2018, Indian movie star and Bollywood's famous couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone's wedding took place at the villa. [7]
A number of feature films have used the villa for location shooting, including A Month by the Lake (1995), His Demise starring Paul Zukowski (2016 disaster movie), Casino Royale (2006). The villa was also used for the lake retreat scenes in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones (2002), with computer-generated imagery used in place of the building's true exterior.
Lake Como, also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy.
Bellagio is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region of Lombardy. It is located on Lake Como, also known by its Latin-derived name Lario, whose arms form an inverted Y. The triangular land mass at the base of the inverted Y is the Larian Triangle: at its northern point sits Bellagio, looking across to the northern arm of the lake and, behind it, the Alps. It has always been famous for its location. It belongs to a mountain community named Comunità montana del Triangolo lariano, based in Canzo.
The Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI) is the National Trust of Italy.
Butler Ames was an American politician, engineer, soldier and businessman. He was the son of Adelbert Ames and grandson of Benjamin Franklin Butler, both decorated generals in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Deepika Padukone is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Hindi films. She is India's highest-paid actress, as of 2023, and her accolades include three Filmfare Awards. She features in listings of the nation's most popular personalities; Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018 and awarded her the Time100 Impact Award in 2022.
Ossuccio is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy. It is located on the western shore of Lake Como some 20 kilometres (12 mi) northeast of Como. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 975 and an area of 8.0 square kilometres (3.1 sq mi).
Varenna is a comune (municipality) on Lake Como in the Province of Lecco in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Milan and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) northwest of Lecco.
Isola Bella is one of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 metres from the lakeside town of Stresa. Isola Bella is 320 metres long by 400 metres wide and is divided between the Palace, its Italianate garden, and a small fishing village.
Angelo Maria Durini was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman-Catholic Church.
Count Guido Monzino was a twentieth-century Italian mountain climber and explorer. In 1973, he led the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest.
The Brissago Islands are a group of two islands located in the Swiss part of Lake Maggiore close to Ronco sopra Ascona and Brissago. Both islands belong to the district of Locarno, in the canton of Ticino.
Villa Carlotta is a villa and botanical garden in Tremezzo on Lake Como in Northern Italy. Today the villa is a museum, whose collection includes works by sculptors such as Antonio Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen, and Giovanni Migliara; painters such as Francesco Hayez; and furniture pieces of previous owners. The villa, whose architect is unknown, was completed in 1745.
The Villa d'Este, originally Villa del Garovo, is a Renaissance patrician residence in Cernobbio on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy. Both the villa and the 25-acre (100,000 m2) park which surrounds it have undergone significant changes since their sixteenth-century origins as a summer residence for the Cardinal of Como. Nevertheless, visiting the garden in 1903 for Century Magazine, Edith Wharton found this to be ‘the only old garden on Como which keeps more than a fragment of its original architecture’, and noted that ‘though Queen Caroline anglicised part of the grounds, the main lines of the Renaissance garden still exist’. Since 1873, the Villa d'Este complex has been a luxury hotel which is a popular destination of Hollywood celebrities and elite billionaires for its ultra-luxurious amenities.
Ranveer Singh Bhavnani is an Indian actor who works in Hindi films. He is the recipient of several awards, including five Filmfare Awards. He is among the highest-paid Indian actors and has been featured in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list since 2012.
Isola del Garda, Isola di Garda, or Isola Borghese is the biggest island on Lake Garda. It is part of the comune of San Felice del Benaco, in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy, Italy. The island has a long and varied history, having been used as a Roman burial ground, pirate lair, a site for a Franciscan monastery, border fortification and as a residential villa. The island has been visited by numerous famous people over the centuries, reportedly including Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Dante Alighieri. Today, it is covered by a park and is dominated by the Venetian neo-Gothic Villa Borghese Cavazza. Although privately owned by the Cavazza family, Isola del Garda has been open to visitors since 2002.
Count Luigi Renato Porro-Lambertenghi was an Italian nationalist, businessman, and politician. He was the son of politician and essayist Luigi Lambertenghi (1739–1813).
The Villa del Balbiano is a villa in Ossuccio, in Lombardy, Italy.
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