Count Guido Monzino
Who was the owner of Villa del Balbianello between Jul 1982 and Feb 1985?
Villa del Balbianello The Villa del Balbianello is a villa in the comune of Lenno ( province of Como ) , a province in the north of the Lombardy region of Italy , overlooking Lake Como . It is located on the tip of the small wooded peninsula of Dosso dAvedo on the western shore of the south-west branch of Lake Como , not far from the Isola Comacina and is famous for its elaborate terraced gardens . History . A Franciscan monastery had existed on the tip of the peninsula of Dosso dAvedo since the 13th century . The two towers which remain on the property are the remnants of the campanili of the monasterys church . After failing in his attempts to buy the nearby Isola Comacina , Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini purchased this property in 1785 . In 1787 , he converted the monastery structure into a villa for use during the summer and added a loggia , which allowed viewers to obtain two different panoramas of the lake . After the cardinal’s death in 1796 , the villa passed to his nephew , Luigi Porro Lambertenghi . During his ownership , the villa became a center for republican activity and meetings , where Italian patriots and Carbonari met . Among Lambertenghis guests at the villa was the writer Silvio Pellico , who tutored Lambertenghis sons . In 1820 , Pellico was arrested at the villa by the Austrian government and Lambertenghi was forced to move to Belgium , where he was supported by the Arconati-Visconti family . Lambertenghi subsequently sold the villa to his friend , Giuseppe Arconati Visconti , grandfather of Luchino Visconti . Visconti made improvements to its gardens and the loggia . To this day the balustrade in front of the church bears the Visconti emblem of a serpent with a man in its mouth . During the period of Visconti ownership , the villa hosted politicians and writers Giovanni Berchet , Alessandro Manzoni , Giuseppe Giusti , as well as the artist Arnold Böcklin . The gradual decline of the family resulted in a neglect of the villa for more than 30 years . Just prior to World War I American businessman Butler Ames saw the villa for the first time . He made an offer to purchase it from the Arconati Visconti family and was initially rejected . He kept returning with ever-larger cash offers , until in 1919 he was successful in obtaining ownership . Ames renovated the villa and its garden . In 1974 , Amess heirs sold the villa to businessman and explorer Count Guido Monzino ( leader of the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest ) . While Monzino left the exterior essentially unchanged he had the interior of the villa completely re-decorated , installing artifacts acquired on his expeditions as well as important pieces of English Georgian and French antique furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries , Beauvais tapestries , French boiseries and Oriental carpets . After the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978 by the Red Brigade , Monzino became worried about his safety , and added a system of hidden passages , linking parts of the property . Monzino died in 1988 and left the villa along with most of the Dosso dAvedo and an endowment to pay for maintenance , to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano ( FAI ) , the National Trust of Italy . Its grounds now form part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani . Today , the Villa del Balbianello is the most visited among the 52 FAI properties with over 135,000 visitors in 2019 . In 2016 the Fondo per lAmbiente Italiano commenced a €413,000 project to restore and improve the villa’s jetty , install new signage , new security , emergency lighting and fire prevention systems . The villas existing diesel fuel system will be replaced with a modern heating system , new visitors bathrooms and drainage systems , and improvements to the bookshop and ticket office space . In November 2018 Indian movie star and Bollywoods famous couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukones wedding took place at the villa . Film appearances . A number of feature films have used the villa for location shooting , including A Month by the Lake ( 1995 ) , His Demise starring Paul Zukowski ( 2016 disaster movie ) , Casino Royale ( 2006 ) . The villa was also used for the lake retreat scenes in ( 2002 ) , with computer-generated imagery used in place of the buildings true exterior . External links . - Villa del Balbianello at the Italian National Trust