Entirely devoted to Villa Melzi d’Eril in Bellagio – one of the most celebrated and refined historic landscape complexes on Lake Como – this volume guides the reader in discovering an exceptional place where architecture, art, nature, and landscape merge into a unified project of extraordinary coherence and harmony.
The book retraces the history of the villa, conceived in the early nineteenth century at the behest of Duke Francesco Melzi d’Eril and created in close collaboration with the decorative architect Giocondo Albertolli. Together with its gardens, the villa represents a rare example of architecture conceived from the outset as an organic and integrated whole.
The narrative then moves on to explore the Melzi d’Eril gardens, which extend over an area of approximately ten hectares along the shores of the lake, through two visitor itineraries. The Historical-Artistic Itinerary leads visitors along the garden paths and stopping points, among architectural features, sculptures, inscriptions, and commemorative monuments, culminating in the Museum Lodovico Gallarati Scotti, housed in the historic greenhouse-orangery and preserving artistic, documentary, and collection-related materials connected to the villa and the families who have inhabited it. The Botanical Itinerary, by contrast, illustrates the landscape structure of the “English-style” garden, the design choices of Luigi Canonica and Luigi Villoresi, and the extraordinary variety of native and exotic trees and shrubs selected to create a refined balance of forms, colours, and perspectives.
Richly illustrated and conceived both as a visitor’s guide and as an in-depth historical, artistic, and botanical study, the volume conveys the unique experience of an authentic open-air museum, where art, history, and nature have engaged in harmonious dialogue for over two centuries. A heritage of exceptional value, continuously preserved and enhanced by the Gallarati Scotti family, who have succeeded in passing on its beauty intact, in full respect of the original design.
Ancora non ci sono recensioni.