Villa Pina is a typical example of eighteenth century Lombard architecture. It is a middle-class villa built on a panoramic site with 10,000 sq.m. of flat gardens built on two levels.
The main building dates back to the end of the eighteenth century to which, not much later, was added a second adjacent building in the eclectic style. Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: “the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them”. In general, the term describes the combination in a single work of a variety of influences, mainly of elements from different historical styles in architecture, painting, and the graphic and decorative arts. In the examples of Eclectism of the late 18th century, of which Villa Pina is a well-preserved example, one can note the tendency to replicate medieval architecture, which are to be found in the element neo-gothic, neo-Romanesque and neo-Byzantine styles all found in Villa Pina.
In Milan and its hinterland, and therefore also in Brianza, one can note a preference for the revival of medieval architecture, dictated by a civil and moral choice during the period of the Risorgimento, which looked to the Medieval Age as the historic period in which the Italian civil conscience matured, this being the era of the free towns.
TERRITORY
Situated in the “ideal” triangle formed by the cities of Como, Lecco and Milan, Brianza extends over an area of rolling hills from which its name derives, in fact the Celtic word “brig” signifies a hill.
THE LAKES
Brianza is located in the centre of the region of the lakes, there are numerous lakes is the vicinity together with the other typical aspects of its landscape: the mountains and the plain.
POETRY
Brianza is the home of Parini who praised the beauty of its landscape and of Stendhal who defined it “the most delightful area of all Italy for the composure of its rivers and the multitude of its lakes”.