Description:
Villa Rachele rises up against a charming backdrop facing Comacina Island on Lake Como in the middle of a nineteenth-century park. Originally owned by Giulio Beccaria, son of the most famous Cesare, for many years it was frequented by scholars and men of culture. Even Alessandro Manzoni, Giulio’s grandson stayed here often. The first portion of the building was built in the mid-eighteenth century, but the villa as it appears today was completed in the early nineteenth century. At the time, a fort was supposed to be built here to block access to the lake.
The extraordinary gardens of this luxurious villa can only be glimpsed from the lake, where twelve plane trees clearly stand out, ordered by the architect Giuseppe Balzaretti, who was hired to make improvements to the property towards the mid-nineteenth century. From the lake and the road you can also see a gigantic Lebanon cedar and various evergreen magnolias. On the side of the residence a shady driveway of cypresses leads to the clearing where the tomb of Antonietta Curioni and Giulio Beccaria was built in 1858, who owned the villa at the time.
The three-floor Villa Beccaria was built on a semicircular terrace overlooking the lake. It is structured into a single building with three openings in the facade.
The surrounding park, designed by the architect Giuseppe Balzaretti, is divided into two main levels: a Mediterranean thicket on the upper part where groves of laurel, linden trees and ancient olive trees grow. Further down, around the villa, is a characteristic lakeside vegetation with several species of cedars and magnolias. The cypress-lined driveway leads to a small clearing where the tomb of the husband and wife Giulio and Antonia Beccaria - Bonesana Curioni is found, built in 1858 with a small temple structure, the work of the sculptor Bassano Danielli. Also included in the property is the antique dock dating back to the seventeenth century.
The original name of the site was “la Puncia”, a dialect term that indicates the property’s position, reaching out into the lake where an ancient fortress once stood that connected Comacina Island in order to control access to the estate.
After Giulio’s death, Alessandro Manzoni’s uncle, the villa was passed on to Cesare Cantù, a scholar and patriot, and the daughter Rachele, wife of Angelo Villa Pernice, deputy to the first Italian parliament in Florence, who used it as his main residence, where a literary salon known by the name "Academny of pedantics" once gathered. Illustrious people took part in the Academy meetings, from Antonio Fogazzaro to the duke Tommaso Gallarati Scotti and Ettore Verga, historian and director of the Sforza Castle in Milan. Following Rachele Cantù’s death, the villa was inherited by Rachele Martelli, the wife of Emilio de Marchi who wrote “Col fuoco non si scherza” (1901), a novel set mostly in the villa. And from that time forward the estate was called by the name "Villa Rachele". Subsequently, the luxurious villa on Lake Como was put up for sale and is currently privately owned and now is available for the rent.
Ask to Property At Lake Como to give you a quote for a weekly rent.
Property not subjected to energy certification
