What to see in Robecco sul Naviglio, itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including Casterno, Villa Gaia and Palazzo Archinto.
Tourist information
Located along the banks of the Naviglio Grande river, 28 km from Milan to the east, Robecco sul Naviglio was in the past a popular vacation spot for many Milanese aristocrats, who used to reach it by navigating the waterway.
In the second half of the fourteenth century it was a fiefdom of Giovannolo di Casate, who brought it as a dowry to his wife Beatrice da Pietrasanta in 1412, before definitively passing to the Pietrasanta.
The fraction of Casterno in Roman times was castrum and in the medieval one it became a fortified place.
In the XXI July square there is the Church of San Giovanni Battista, which houses pictorial works by Procaccini and Appiani.
Villa Gromo di Ternengo, located in via Matteotti, was built in the second half of the seventeenth century as a residence of the Casati family, above the remains of an ancient convent.
The facade of this building is very interesting, including a portico with three arches resting on paired columns.
What see
In via Matteotti there is also Villa Gandini, nicknamed Villa Gaia as it was the leisure place of Ludovico il Moro, dating back to the second half of the fourteenth century.
The interior of this villa is remarkable, elegantly decorated by Andrea Appiani.
The Archinto Palace was built in the period between the second half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, based on a design by Carlo Federico da Pietrasanta.
In Via Mazzini overlooks Villa Dugnani, built over a previous fifteenth-century building, with interesting terracotta windows on the facade.
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In the same street there is also the Palazzo Sironi Marelli, whose construction was started at the end of the nineteenth century but was never completed.
Noteworthy is the Italian garden, characterized by precious plants, waterways and an artificial lake.
Villa Scotti, located in Piazza XXI Luglio, dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century.
In the same square there is Villa Terzaghi, a remarkable example of Lombard Baroque.
The Villa Barbavara di Gravellona, nicknamed the Bassana, which was built at the end of the seventeenth century, is surrounded by a typical Italian garden, of particular interest is the lounge on the ground floor, where there is a fresco depicting the Naviglio and its villas.
