What to see · Bollate

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• Villa Arconati

  Villa Arconati, known to everyone as the Castellazzo, is one of the historic villas of the Parco delle Groane, at Castellazzo di Bollate, the hamlet that takes its name from it: an example of Lombard late Baroque, declared a national monument. From at least the fourteenth century there was a «villa franca» on the site, a fortified farm with old tax privileges, and in the later sixteenth century a country house of the marquises Cusani. In 1610 the property was bought by Galeazzo Arconati, cousin of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and a collector, who owned among other things Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus. From 1621 Galeazzo, an architect by passion, planned a new palace, inspired by the great Roman and Florentine villas, with house and garden conceived as one; at his death, in 1648, it was unfinished. Today's design is due to Count Giuseppe Antonio Arconati, who from 1742 renewed it with Versailles in mind. After 1772 the villa passed to the Busca; in 1989 many furnishings were sold at auction, and since 2011 it has been run by the Fondazione Augusto Rancilio.

  What to see

  You arrive by the via dei Leoni, which leaves the Varesina road between four statues of big cats on pedestals and two obelisks and runs between two rows of hornbeams to the gate. The palace has about ten thousand square metres divided into seventy rooms, and a local legend credits it with as many windows as there are days in the year. The west and south fronts, late Baroque, are those wanted by Giuseppe Antonio, who also added the south-west wing.

  Inside, the Galliari brothers worked on the decoration, and the trompe-l'œil of the entrance staircase is attributed to Giocondo Albertolli. In the plaster-cast gallery is the Roman statue known as the «Pompeo Arconati», now thought to be a portrait of Tiberius: it was moved there from the garden to protect it. The park, of twelve hectares, was remade in the French manner in the eighteenth century, with a parterre in front of the south façade, and is under restoration.

  Visiting

  The villa operates as a museum and a venue for events, with guided tours: opening days, times and tickets should be checked on the website of the foundation that runs it.

  Our editors' tip

  Among the guests at the Castellazzo was Carlo Goldoni, a protégé of the Arconati, who tells of the menagerie of exotic animals kept in the gardens. A century earlier, in 1630, when the villa was still a building site, the architect Francesco Maria Richini took refuge here, fleeing Milan because of the plague.

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