brittsadventures:

Villa Melzi, Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy

Onore alla camelia, il fiore tipico delle ville lariane che annuncia la primavera e nei giardini di Villa Carlotta a Tremezzo-Griante, Villa Melzi a Bellagio, Villa Camilla a Domaso, con i boccioli che si schiudono al sole, dalla metà di marzo offre un fantastico spettacolo (via Villa Carlotta e Villa Melzi: sul Lario l’alleanza delle camelie - Cronaca - La Provincia di Como)

VILLA GIULIA ( Oliverio Hamlet) - Bellagio

Villa Giulia has changed hands many times. After the Venini family it passed into the hands of Leopold I of Belgium followed by the Prince of Flanders. During the second half of the 19th century it became an hotel before being acquired by the Count Blome de Boul Schenenstein who enlargened the park. During the 20th century the house was property of the Polish Baron Gay and the Rumanian nobleman Kirakirschen. The current owners are the Bonecchi family.

Bellagio s Villas and Gardens - Bellagio Lake Como - Italy

Villa Serbelloni has a very ancient story, property of the Sfondrati family in 1533, became property of Count Alessandro Serbelloni who gave to the estate his body and his soul.
The external aspect, ample but simple wasn’t modified, but the inside was carefully decorated, from the vaulted ceiling, to the paintings and other art’s objects. The Duke Serbelloni, anyway, was more into the garden than the villa, he spent incredible amounts of money, made built tracks practicable for wheeled traffic, avenues and paths, for an extension of 18 km.
The Duke died in Bellagio in 1826, the villa passed to his sons, Giovanni Battista and Ferdinando, and it started to decay progressively after their death; but since 1870 their heirs leased it out to Antonio Mella  who made it a depandance of the Grande Bretagne Hotel; in 1907 they sold it to a swiss society that made it the Serbelloni Hotel. The Hotel was bought by the Princess Ella Walker and finally left as bequeath to the Rockefeller foundation in 1959. Today the villa is used as place for meetings and stay.
The villa gave hospitality to several famous people, when it was propriety of Sfonderati : the Emperor Massimiliano I, Leonardo da Vinci, Lodovico il Moro, Bianca Sforza, the Cardinal Borromeo. During the XIX century: Pellico, Moroncelli, the Emperor Francesco, the Queen Victoria, the Kaiser William, Umberto I, writers as Manzoni, Grossi and Pindemonte.

photo by: steinbock.bonnie

The Villa that became the Melzi’s residence at the end of his political career and afterwards his summer residence until his death was decorated and furnished by some of the most famous artists of the age: as well as along with Giocondo Albertolli author of the great part of furniture and inside decorations, are to be noted the painters Andrea Appiani (1754-1817) and Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815), Alessandro Sanquirico (1777-1849) and the sculptors Antonio Canova (1757-1822), Giambattista Comolli (1775-1830), Pompeo Marchesi (1789-1858), as well as the bronze sculptor Luigi Manfredini (1771-1840)

photo by: kartini_k2