Villa La Vescogna

   Villa La Vescogna is an old italian mansion  that dates back to the XVII century and it is an extraordinary example of a country-stately house located on the homonym hillock (400 mt) in the superior administrative division of Calco village, in the heart of Brianza land to few kilometres away from Lake Como .    The origin of the strange name is unknown, Giovanni Maria Dozio (priest and historian, XIX century) says it has Spanish origins, but from where this information was taken is not clear. The name Vascogna as written in the oldest documents suggests, rather than Spanish, the French Guascogna.

La Vescogna is characterized by simple and dour shapes on the front facade that remind of its having been a castle in the past centuries, situated by the Adda river, on the border between the Dukedom of Milan and the Venetian Republic.

On the other side the house is rather baroque and it faces the south with its typical italian garden, constituited of three different terraces , each with its flight, balcony and decorations. In the most repaired but best located side, just few steps away from the amazing pool, there is an ancient stable shed that is now used as a club-house.

(ref:"Ville della Brianza-Tomo I°-Rusconi)

PANORAMA AROUND 1950s

The Brianza

In 1835, baron Carl von Czoernig, a high official in the Habsburg empire, wrote from Montevecchia that : "Geographers rightly call Italy the garden of Europe, Lombardy the garden of Italy and the beautiful hilly region of Brianza the garden of Lombardy".

"And here we are at the hearth of the classic Brianza: Merate. There is the high round tower from the Villa Prinetti: here to the west, the curious pyramid-shaped mountains from Montevecchia; to the east, towards the Adda river, a line of hillocks dominated by Mount Robbio, famous for its vineyards . . . What an interesting landscape change: among the golden wine leafs brought back to life after a long time of desertion, one can spot big villages such as Cernusco, Merate; farther away, hidden, Vimercate and Brivio on the banks of the Adda river; smaller places with pictoresque names wich reminds us of the surnames of old milanese families: Calco, Mondonico, Robbiate, Sartirana . . .", wrote Alex Visconti, in 1931, in his "Itinerari Sentimentali".

If Brianza as the "Garden of Lombardy" hardly exists anymore, in many of its most characteristics places and villas it is still possible to find the beauty and refinement of that long gone civility of "living in a villa" and in its parks and gardens we can still find remains of the land that, connecting man's artistic masterpieces with the beauty of nature, enchanted writers, painters and travellers. " La sensation du beau vous y arrive par bouffée de tous les cotès - Emanating from all sides, the sensation of the beauty caresses the observer" wrote from Monticello Brianza the great writer and traveller Stendhal at first of Eight Hundred.

(ill. Panorama from Mount Brianza)

The Garden

Vesca Nascor Mox Vegebo Hic In Vesconia Felix