Villa Carlotta is a place of rare beauty, where masterpieces
of nature and art live together in perfect harmony in over 70.000 square meters
of gardens and museum. The beautiful villa was built at the end of XVII century
by the Milanese marquis Giorgio Clerici in a natural basin between lake and
mountains, facing the dolomite Grignas and the peninsula of Bellagio.
The
architect created for the Clericis an important but sober building, with an
Italian garden decorated with sculptures, stairs and fountains. In 1801 Gian
Battista Sommariva, famous politician, businessman and patron of arts, bought
the villa.
Thanks to this owner the property in Tremezzo attained the summit of
its splendor and became one of the most important halting-place of the Grand
Tour. The villa became a temple of XIX century art with works of Canova,
Thorvaldsen and Hayez: Palamedes, Eros and Psyche, Terpsychore,
The last kiss of
Romeo and Juliet are only some of the masterpieces that enriches the
extraordinary collection. Under Sommariva part of the park was transformed in a
fascinating romantic garden.
Sommariva's heirs sold the villa in 1843 to
Princess Marianne of Nassau, Albert’s of Prussia wife, who gave it as a present
to her daughter Carlotta in occasion of her wedding with Georg II of
Saxen-Meiningen. Hence the name Villa Carlotta.
Very fond in botanic, Georg
enriched the park, today of great historical and environmental value. The
gardens of Villa Carlotta chiefly owe their reputation to the rhododendrons’ and
azaleas’ spring flowering, consisting of over 150 different sorts.
But the
gardens are worth to visit in every period of the year: old varieties of
camellias, century old cedars and sequoias, huge planes and tropical plants, the
Rock garden and the Ferns valley, the Rhododendrons wood and the Bamboos garden,
the agricultural tools museum and the wonderful views on the lake built in the
ages the celebrity of this place, still today consider "a place of heaven".
The garden-park of Villa Carlotta (about 8 hectares) is a very
fascinating place: its favorable position, but also the harmonic coexistence of
styles, the variety of species, the literary suggestions make it worthy of a
visit.
Come to see the Italian garden that dates back to the XVII Century with
its geometrical schema, stair and terraces, statues and fountains; come to feel
the echoes of the Romantic period, still alive in the structure of the park with
old trees of big size and views of great charm.
Come to live the impressive
vegetal architecture of the second half of the XIX Century with the monumental
azaleas and rhododendrons and the unending richness of rare plants and species!
The garden-park of Villa Carlotta (about 8 hectares) is a very
fascinating place: its favorable position, but also the harmonic coexistence of
styles, the variety of species, the literary suggestions make it worthy of a
visit. 
