VILLA RECALCATI
(VARESE)

Found in Casbeno and at present the seat of the Province of Varese and the Prefecture, the villa was built starting out from the XVII century: during this period its appearance was so different from the one it has today that of the seventeenth-century plan only a few parts are recognizable today (in those parts included in the rooms at present used by the Prefecture where there is a fireplace dated 1631).
Giovanni Antonio Adamollo, an eighteenth-century chronicler from Varese, talked about the villa with reference to 1723 when Gabrio Recalcati, in exploiting the growing impoverishment of the small town, a little at a time has bought almost all the lanes which were very particular, in this way becoming one of the most important landowners of the zone. In the eighteenth century the villa was made up of two constructions separated by the road which in leading to the residence from Varese continued into the fields beyond the buildings.
This gives us the idea of a large and rich villa although perhaps still closer to the country villa, functional above all in terms of agricultural life and not yet transformed into a villa of pleasure built for rest and the holidays of its owners.
Between 1756 and 1775 further works were carried out on the villa on the express desire of Antonio Luigi Recalcati. On this occasion the fresco paintings actually visible today in the east wing were carried out by Giovanni Battista Ronchelli these depict Moses saved from the waters, The crossing of the Red Sea and Moses causes the water to spring from the desert. In the main room or salon he also painted Wisdom between Justice and Minerva.
During this period the construction probably took on its most complete architectural form to which an intense mundane life corresponded (and documented, moreover, by the work of the Milanese poet Domenico Balestrieri.
1825 saw the interruption of the direct descendants of the Recalcati family. In 1874 the villa was transformed into an hotel, taking on its present-day appearance.

During the second half of the nineteenth century the villa and its park were bought by Giacomo Limido, Gerolamo Garoni and Eugenio Maroni Biroldi who intended restructuring the building in order to obtain an hotel, following the trend which saw Varese and its environs as the 'holiday resort' no longer of the nobility but of the nascent Italian and foreign industrial bourgeoisie. The Grand Hotel Varese Excelsior was inaugurated on the 1st of July 1874, becoming one of the most renowned holiday sites of the period.
With the passing of the eighteenth-century opulence and splendour of the Milanese nobility the villa began a new 'lease of life' in more modern terms, continuing to host princes and people of culture. This refound luster lasted until 1929 when the offer of new holiday resorts decreed the closure of the hotel. In 1931 the building was purchased by the Province of Varese (established in 1927).
The park as we see it today is the work of the architect Enrico Combi who also planned the layout of the park of Villa Ponti in Biumo Superiore.
The garden is a complex of romantically inspired views, together with the classical French garden with its central parterre. The choice of the species, exotic plants flanking plane-trees, hornbeams and Japanese pagoda-trees for the borders of the avenues mirrors the destination of the site, recreating sophisticated atmospheres in the park next to more usual perspectives of a local kind.
A curiosity here: the park of the villa conserved the heart of the Polish hero, Tadeusz Kosciusko (1746-1817), a general and politician who supported the cause of Polish independence. It was brought here by Emilia Morosini Zeltner, a follower of the general and guardian of his relics and remains when she married Count Morosini, the owner of the villa. The heart was buried in a memorial stone placed in the garden where it remained until 1895, twenty years after the death of the Countess, when it was taken to the Polish cemetery in Rappersill (Switzerland). In 1927 the remains of the hero were taken back to Poland.

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