What to See in Desio: Attractions & Sights

More places of interest

Basilica di San Siro e Materno

The basilica of Santi Siro e Materno is the main church of Desio, a provostry and the head of an old parish district. The first church was founded in the seventh century by the archbishop of Milan Giovanni il Buono, and for centuries it headed a vast pieve, with dependent churches from Seregno to Cinisello. The present building, designed by Camillo Ciniselli, was begun in 1652 and consecrated in 1744 by Cardinal Giuseppe Pozzobonelli; in the nineteenth century it was enlarged with the transept and dome and reconsecrated on 24 August 1895. On 7 December 1936 Pope Pius XI raised it to a minor basilica.
What to see
The façade is articulated by Ionic pilasters and divided into two registers, with three doorways: the central one stands between two columns under a pediment. The interior has a single nave with side chapels and a barrel vault, and at the crossing with the transept rises the dome, frescoed with the Glory of Saints Syrus and Maternus. The Baroque high altar, designed by the architect Giuseppe Merlo, dates from 1744; there are also two altarpieces by Mauro Conconi, the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem of 1861 and Christ and the Children of 1858, and the Madonna and Child with Saints painted by Stefano De Fedeli in 1480.
The bell tower dates from the early fifteenth century: it was rebuilt after the Milanese Ghibellines had set fire to the earlier one to flush out the Guelphs barricaded inside. The base of the older tower was absorbed into the church in the sixteenth century as the baptistery.
Visiting
The church was restored in the early two-thousands. Mass times and opening hours should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
The bells have a story of their own: the peal was cast in 1843 by Felice Bizzozero of Varese, and the basilica's bell-ringers' group has been active since 1799, when a first peal of five bells was cast. The great bell, which had cracked, was replaced in 2010.
Villa Tittoni-Traversi

Villa Cusani Tittoni Traversi is a pleasure villa in Desio, the work of Giuseppe Piermarini altered in the nineteenth century by Pelagio Palagi. Its origins probably go back to the sixteenth century, to a country house of the Counts of Rho that was sold in 1651 to Marquis Ottavio Cusani. In 1776 Piermarini was called in and gave the villa the Neoclassical balance still legible in the symmetrical arrangement of the windows; by 1779 the front towards Desio was finished, and work began on the garden, laid out by Antonio Villoresi with the small temple of Hymen and the grottoes designed by Giuseppe Zanoia. On 14 July 1785 the villa received the King and Queen of Naples, who arrived with a procession of seven carriages.
What to see
In 1817 Luigi Cusani, burdened by gambling debts, sold the villa to the lawyer Giovanni Traversi, and the Traversi family entrusted Pelagio Palagi with transforming the complex: to him are owed the monumental façades, with great columns and Corinthian capitals above the ground-floor arcades and, towards the park, a pediment with allegorical figures in relief. Palagi demolished the side wings and rebuilt them longer and set further back, enlarging the court of honour, closed by a cast-iron railing between columns crowned with statues. The ground-floor rooms mix Neoclassical, Neo-Gothic, Baroque and Moorish styles.
Next to the villa, in the rooms of the former convent of San Francesco, suppressed in 1777, Palagi set up a museum and built the Neo-Gothic tower that bears his name, inspired by the bell tower of Chiaravalle Abbey. In 1900 the property passed to Tommaso Tittoni, later prime minister and foreign minister, who had Luca Beltrami complete the monumental staircase.
Visiting
The town of Desio bought the park in 1952, to make it a public park, and the villa in 1975: today it houses the municipal library and a museum devoted to the artist Giuseppe Scalvini. Since 2012 the park has hosted the summer music, film and theatre festival «Parco Tittoni». Opening times should be checked with the town council.
Our editors' tip
On 7 November 1993 a serious fire devastated the great hall, bringing down vaults and floors and making new restoration necessary. The ancient inscriptions, statues and marbles collected by Ferdinando Cusani are no longer here: they are in the museums of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.