What to see · Varese

More places of interest

• Villa Toeplitz

  Villa Toeplitz is a residence in the Sant'Ambrogio Olona district of Varese, on viale Giovanbattista Vico, with a municipal park attached.

  What to see

  The villa, in eclectic style, was built in 1901 as a country residence of the German Hannesen family and bought in 1914 by the banker of Polish origin Jósef Leopold, known as Giuseppe, Toeplitz, who in the following years had it transformed and enlarged, with the Roman architect Armando Brasini, until 1926. The main buildings are the manor villa, the residential villa and the porter's lodge; in the park are a stable, a chapel, greenhouses, a tennis court and a swimming pool. The upper part of the park recalls French gardens, was designed by a Paris studio and channels the waters of nearby Monte Martica; the lower part, less geometric, recalls English gardens and is in neoclassical style. According to the sources consulted it is considered one of the ten most beautiful parks in Italy.

  On the banker's death, in 1938, the complex was inherited by his wife Edvige Mrozowska, a Polish dancer and actress with a passion for music, art and astronomy, and by his son Ludovico, who at the end of the Second World War sold it to a family from Legnano that used it as a private residence. The villa was a place of cultural and artistic gatherings; among the guests the banker received in Varese, in the building he designed along the access road, are remembered the Duke of Abruzzi, the writer Matilde Serao, the Agnelli, the Pirelli and, probably, Gabriele D'Annunzio. In 1972 the Comune of Varese bought the whole property, which after a complete restoration was opened to the public.

  Visiting

  The villa is on viale Giovanbattista Vico, in Varese, with the municipal park. According to the sources consulted it also houses offices of the University of Insubria and the Castiglioni Ethno-Archaeological Museum: opening hours of the park and the museums should be checked; the sources point to the site fondoambiente.it.

  Our editors' tip

  Look at the tower with the openable metal dome, crowned by an arcaded loggia, which housed an observatory with an astronomical mirror made under the supervision of Emilio Bianchi, director of the Brera Astronomical Observatory: during the Second World War the Germans suspected it was used for secret communications by Mrs Toeplitz, who had to defend herself from the accusation of being a spy in the service of the Allies.

• Sala Veratti

  Casa Veratti, also known as the former monastery of Sant'Antonino, is a complex of buildings in Varese, between corso Matteotti, piazza Carducci, via Broggi and via Veratti, derived from the suppressed sixteenth-century monastery of Sant'Antonino, of which the cloister and the refectory remain, the latter used as a municipal exhibition space under the name of Sala Veratti.

  What to see

  The former refectory is today used as a space for art shows and exhibitions of the Civic Museums of Varese. Today one enters through what was the back wall, originally without openings, while the old door onto the cloister has been walled up. On the wall of today's entrance are frescoed King David, the Annunciation, the Symbols of the Passion, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, attributed to the eighteenth-century painter Donato Mazzolino; on the back wall, the Nativity, the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Child, besides the Angels on the vault, are by an unknown author.

  The convent of the Benedictine nuns of Sant'Antonino arose from 1568, after Cardinal Carlo Borromeo suppressed the convent of Sant'Antonino at Luvinate. In 1789, with the reform of religious orders brought in by the emperor Joseph II, the monastery was suppressed and the whole complex sold at auction; bought by Pietro Veratti, in the early nineteenth century the church's service rooms, the sacristy and the bell tower were pulled down, and the church was turned into a house with shops. The large cloister with paired columns survives, owned by the Veratti family, the object of a recovery project after the protection decree of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of 1987, and it is a national monument.

  Visiting

  The Sala Veratti is in the former refectory of the monastery, in Varese. The sources consulted give no opening hours or programme of exhibitions: these should be checked with the Civic Museums.

  Our editors' tip

  Look at the half-length figures of the Sibyls, Libyan, Cumaean, Erythraean and Persian, and of the Prophets dressed in antique style within architectural frames, of refined painterly quality: between 1736 and 1740 the abbess of the monastery commissioned them from the local painter Pietro Antonio Magatti and the quadratura painters Giuseppe and Giulio Baroffio.

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