Villa Monastero is located in Varenna, Province of Lecco, on the shore of Lake Como. It includes a botanical garden, a museum, and a convention center, contains precious architecture, period furniture, works of art and a beautiful park that extends to Fiumelatte (river) with paths overlooking the lake, tall cypresses and many species of exotic plants.
The villa lies south of the village, halfway between Varenna and Fiumelatte, overlooking the banks of the Lario.
History
Villa Monastero is an eclectic villa built in the Nordic style.
The site was originally a Cistercian convent, founded at the end of the 12th century in Varenna, which now lies beneath the modern building.[1] The convent grew in importance and wealth, purchasing many properties, especially around Lierna, but eventually declined to only six mothers, and was closed by papal bull in 1567.[2]
The whole estate was purchased by Paolo Mornico in 1569, using his fortune amassed through iron mining in Valsassinia, who transformed it into a prestigious residence.[3] In the 17th century the Mornico family incrementally rebuilt and decorated it in the eclectic style.[citation needed]
Walter Kees of Leipzig bought the villa in the 1890s, and between 1897 and 1909 carried out modifications which give its current Eclectic style. Some of the architects involved include Emilio Alemagna, Achille Majnoni, and Enrico Citterio, the construction itself was overseen by G. Bertarini of Varenna.[4] Restoration occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century by Carolina Maumary, sister-in-law of the then prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia-PiedmontMassimo D'Azeglio. [5] The final phase of construction expanded the garden, with the cooperation of Enrico Achler of Menaggio.[citation needed]
In 1936 the Milanese De Marchi family, originally from Switzerland, donated the villa to the public and it became a museum. In 1940 the gardens were opened to the public.[citation needed]
In 1953 the conference center was created. Nobel Laureates, among them Enrico Fermi, have been meeting for international courses in physics.[5] It has been hosting summer courses for the "Enrico Fermi" International School of Physics, and as of 2013 had heard lectures by more than thirty-four Nobel Laureates.[6]
In 1996, as new province boundaries were established, management passed to the Province of Lecco and the museum house founded. In 2009 the entire complex was acquired by the Province of Lecco.[citation needed]
Museum house
A museum house was set up within Villa Monastero, and opened to the public in 2003. It was officially recognized by Lombardy in 2005. The monumental part of the house was already completed by 1996, with 14 rooms featuring original decorations and furniture from its various owners. The museum house has been visited by more than 40,000 guests.[6] The museum house also contains a collection of optical, electronic, and mechanical instruments originally belonging to Giovanni Polvani.
Photo gallery
Villa Monastero garden's entrance
Front of Villa Monastero's building
Villa Monastero museum house
Villa Monastero's architecture
Giardino di Villa Monastero
Villa Monastero's garden
Villa Monastero's garden
Giardino di Villa Monastero
View on Lake Como
View on Lake Como
Notes
↑ Ranzi, Anna (ed.). Villa Monastero, Varenna. Oggiono, Lecco: "Villa Monastero" Foundation of Varenna. p.6.
Lecco is a city of approximately 47,000 inhabitants in Lombardy, Northern Italy, 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Milan. It lies at the end of the south-eastern branch of Lake Como. The Bergamo Alps rise to the north and east, cut through by the Valsassina of which Lecco marks the southern end.
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.
Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the third-largest public park in Rome, after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili and Villa Ada. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana, built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, or party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the late 19th century.
The province of Lecco is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lecco.
The Sapienza University of Rome, formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ("wisdom"), is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is as such one of the world's oldest universities, and with 122,000 students, it is the largest university in Europe. Due to its size, funding, and numerous laboratories and libraries, Sapienza is a global major education and research centre, first ranked in Southern Europe. The university is located mainly in the Città Universitaria, which covers 44 ha near the monumental cemetery Campo Verano, with different campuses, libraries and laboratories in various locations in Rome.
Via Panisperna boys is the name given to a group of young Italian scientists led by Enrico Fermi, who worked at the Royal Physics Institute of the University of Rome La Sapienza. In 1934 they made the famous discovery of slow neutrons. This later enabled development of the nuclear reactor and construction of the first atomic bomb.
Colico is a town and comune in the province of Lecco, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated on the northern arm of Lake Como, where the river Adda enters the lake. Colico is the largest town in the northern part of Lake Como, which is often identified as its Colico branch.
Esino Lario is a municipality (comune) of the Province of Lecco in the Italian region of Lombardy. It is about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Milan, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) northwest of Lecco, and about 4.3 kilometres (2.7 mi) from the eastern shore of Lake Como.
Lierna is a comune in the province of Lecco in Lombardy, in north-west Italy. It lies on the eastern shore of Lake Como, about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Milan and about 15 kilometres (9 mi) north-west of Lecco.
Molteno is a comune (municipality) and a hill-top town in the Province of Lecco in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of Milan and about 11 kilometres (7 mi) southwest of Lecco. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 3,206 and an area of 3.2 square kilometres (1.2 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.
The Grigna is a mountain massif in the province of Lecco, Lombardy, northern Italy, with an elevation of 2,410 metres (7,907 ft). It is part of the Bergamo Alps, and it has two peaks, Grignone or Grigna settentrionale(2,410m), the higher Northern, and the lower, Southern Grignetta or Grigna meridionale (2,184 m).
Pietro Porcinai is renowned as one of the most outstanding Italian landscape architects of the twentieth century. He designed a wide variety of projects on the most diverse scales: gardens and public parks, industrial districts, hotels and tourist villages, motorways and agricultural areas. The hundreds of projects implemented in Italy and abroad comprise the most extraordinary “landscaped” gardens, perfectly integrated within the surroundings and so natural as to appear untouched by human hand.
Porta Torre is a main fortified tower located in the town of Como, in Lombardy. It is 40 meters high and it was built in 1192, to defend the main entrance of the city.
Villa Toeplitz is a historic villa located in Varese, Lombardy, Italy. Construction was complete by 1901 and subsequently named after the banker Jósef Leopold Toeplitz, who bought the villa in 1914. It previously belonged to the Hannesens, a German family that used it as a country holiday house.
The Milan school of physics indicates the tradition of research in the field of physics in Milan, with particular reference to the first and second half of the 20th century, when under the impulse of Orso Mario Corbino and Antonio Garbasso, and with the chair of theoretical physics by Aldo Pontremoli, the so-called Institute of Complementary Physics of Milan was formed at the University of Milan.
1-Fluorohexane is a chemical compound from the group of aliphatic saturated halogenated hydrocarbons. The chemical formula is CH3(CH2)5F.
The Azzone Visconti Bridge is a medieval bridge over the Adda River at Lecco in Lombardy, Italy. It was built by Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan, in the first half of the 14th century to connect Lecco to the road leading to Milan. Initially, it had towers and drawbridges controlling the city's entrance. Over the following centuries, it underwent demolitions and restorations.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
