Villa Melzi d’Eril is elegantly placed on the waterfront of Lake Como amid a rare garden,  just 31 miles from Milan in Lombardy, Northern Italy.
In the early 19th century, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, vice president of the Italian Republic founded by Napoleon, envisaged the villa as a summer retreat. It is accompanied by a family chapel, an orangerie that served as a greenhouse, and a lakeside pavilion. These were set in a wondrous garden with rare exotic plants, sculptures, and an Asian haven, evoking memory and imagination of far away lands.
The Villa was designed by Swiss-born architect, painter, and sculptor Giocondo Albertolli, and built between 1808 and 1815. The neoclassic style draws upon the classical roots of ancient Greece, having a simple form with a subtle decorative expression. The soft, gentle tones of the white walls with light gray trim and blue window shutters complement the atmosphere of the lake with the lofty clouds that often float by before dissipating among the mountains beyond….