“Here, where childhood brought us together, we, Silvio and Sofia Della Valle di Casanova, married and created this garden to fulfil our cherished adolescent dream.”

At the top of the Castagnola hillside of Verbania Pallanza, close to the Romanesque church of San Remigio, and bordering the more famous gardens of Villa Taranto, first cousins Silvio Della Valle di Casanova and Sophie Browne married and created their dream garden.

Silvio, a musician and poet, trained at the Stuttgart Conservatory and in Weimar with Franz Liszt, married Sofie who was a passionate painter.  From 1897 to 1916, the couple transformed the extensive property inherited from their grandfather, the Irish diplomat Peter Browne, with refined artistic sensibility: they landscaped the steep and rocky park with spacious garden terraces, they enhanced the forest with rare botanical essences, and they replaced the old chalet (built in 1863), with a Neapolitan Baroque palazzo.

The park represents a sort of ‘history of gardens’ where the various styles - Italian, English, medieval, woodland and orchard - blend into each other and gradually fade into one, becoming a unique harmonious whole. But the true protagonists of the garden are feelings: the desolation is tangible in the giardino della mestizia (garden of sadness) which contrasts with the colours and vibrancy of the Giardino della letizia (garden of joy). There is a space for the past dedicated to memories which leads on to the giardino dei sospiri (garden of sighs).

The extensive English-style spaces act as a counterpoint to the more secluded areas such as the hortus conclusus where the atmosphere becomes more private, due to the intimacy of the place itself and to the presence of the charming Romanesque church of San Remigio.

In an era of Renaissance patronage, and to complete ‘the dream come true’, the villa provided hospitality and inspiration to intellectuals Gabriele D'Annunzio, Isolde Kurz, Richard Voss and Georg Brandes, to pianists Clara Wieck Schumann, Emil Von Sauer, Eugen D'Albert and Wilhelm Kempff, together with composers Hugo Wolf and Ferruccio Busoni, the latter of which was portrayed by Umberto Boccioni during his time in San Remigio.

Villa San Remigio has belonged to the Piedmont Region since 1977 and currently hosts international courses and conferences of the Amedeo Avogadro University of Eastern Piedmont.

The garden is being upgraded with landscaping and a significant renovation in anticipation of an upcoming opening to the public.