Villa Pallavicino overlooks Salerano Canavese from a hill just outside the village, on a spot chosen with care: from up here the view sweeps 360 degrees over the morainic amphitheatre of Ivrea. It was built in the early twentieth century for marquis Giuseppe Pallavicino Mossi, who wanted it as his family's summer residence and gave it a style then almost unheard of in these parts: Second Empire, with mansard roofs and a Parisian-boulevard elegance transplanted among the hills of the Canavese.
What to see
The building has a C-shaped plan and rises over two floors plus a mansard attic, in unmistakably French taste. Three terraced avant-corps project from the main facade: the central one held the formal entrance, with an elegant staircase. The original layout tells the life of an early-century holiday villa rather well: on the ground floor a chapel, drawing room, library, dining room, pantries and kitchens; on the middle floor the gallery and the bedrooms; under the roof the servants' quarters.
Visiting
Its recent history is less happy than its lines. In 1995, with the death of Countess Bianca, the last descendant of the Pallavicino Mossi, the villa was put on the market several times, changing hands as often and ending up in long, never-completed renovation works. So this is not a place with opening hours and tickets: you look at it from outside, walking up towards the hill, where it remains the most recognisable presence in the village.
Our editors' tip
The right way to look at it is together with the landscape it was built for: shift your gaze from the building to the morainic hills and you recover exactly the effect the marquis was after when he chose this rise. And it is worth pausing on the thought: a villa like this, in a village of a few hundred souls, says a great deal about what summering in Piedmont meant in the early twentieth century, when noble families came looking for the good air of the Canavese.