Villa Ranzoni stands in the centre of Cossato and is an eighteenth-century building, today the seat of the municipal library and of the social and cultural offices. The exact dating of the complex cannot be documented with certainty: the original core predates 1722, the year of birth of Benedetto Felice Ranzoni, who in 1783 became court physician and prefect of medicine at the Royal College of the Provinces.
What to see
The building started as a noble residence in villa form, outside the main settlement, surrounded by cultivated and wooded land on the right bank of the Strona torrent: that is the reason for its broad plan and its relationship with greenery, which the town that grew around it has not entirely erased. The unification of the facades and decorative features you see today probably dates from the early twentieth century, and it is what gives the whole its compact look as you arrive: the villa was not built in one go, but is a family house that grew by additions and was later tidied up under a single skin.
Visiting
The municipality of Cossato bought the villa in 1988 from the last descendants of the family, baroness Lina Ranzoni Tecco. Since then it has been a public building, and that is the easiest way to see the interiors: you walk in during library hours, without waiting for a special opening.
Our editors' tip
The villas of Cossato are best seen one after another. From here you go on to Villa Berlanghino, which has the public park, and a little further out is Villa Fecia with the oratory of Santa Margherita: taken together they explain how the landowners of the Biella district built the town around their own houses, and not the other way round.