CASTELLAZZO DEI ARCONATI 
NEAR MILAN 
PLATES 14, 15, 16 
E flat environs of Milan, consisting almost entirely of marsh and rice-fields, 
would seem ill suited for the making of gardens; but nevertheless, if we peruse 
Alberto dal Re’s volumes of engravings, we find a most interesting series of 
villas, apparently almost without exception belonging to the early part of the 
eighteenth century, and showing the extent to which French influence in 
garden design pervaded Lombardy at this period. We see the style, which 
in the first instance Le Notre had acquired from a close study of the great 
Roman villas, return to Italy, with all the complications and mannerisms that had been added by 
French taste. The fashion was particularly adapted to the flat landscape of Lombardy, and on 
that account does not appear so out of place as it would have done in other parts of Italy. 
Most of the villas illustrated by Dal R£ have been abandoned, during the last half-century, 
for villas in the neighbourhood of the Lakes of Como and Maggiore, where many of the Milanese 
nobility now possess country seats. In all these villas we can easily trace a distinct local 
individuality in the architectural detail, a kind of rococo form, due probably to the hardness of 
the stone, not to be met with in any other district of Italy. 
The Villa of Castellazzo, besides being one of the largest of the country villas around 
Milan, is also one of the most characteristic and one of the best preserved. It is situated about 
seven miles on the high road to Varese, and was designed by Jean Gianda, a French painter and 
architect. 
The casino is very extensively planned, with a large central court surrounded by the farm 
buildings and three other smaller service courts; the principal rooms open on to a broad raised 
terrace facing due south, and the gardens are entirely planned east and north of the casino. In 
front of the south terrace is a forecourt enclosed within a charming balustrade wall, and on either 
side are small parterre flower gardens. A colonnade opens on to another courtyard upon the 
north side of the casino (illustrated on Plate 15), and from here a long central alley leads to the 
Theatre of Diana, passing on the left a quaint open-air theatre, enclosed within walls of treillage. 
The Theatre of Diana (illustrated on Plate 16) is surrounded by a wood, through which an avenue 
leads to the aviary, behind which was an enclosure for deer, and ‘ serraglio’ for wild animals. 
South of this wood is an extensive labyrinth of closely cut hornbeam, and a long treillage alley 
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