The MonzART Park_preservation project of Monza Park by Ziqi Cui

The MonzART Park a preservation project of the Royal Park of Monza Park

BOOKLET ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION STUDIO

MONZA ROYAL PARK PRESERVATION PLAN AND BUILDING REUSE A.Y. 2020 - 2021 Professors: Alberta Cazzani Tutors : arch. Anna Turrina

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Raffaella Brumana arch. Carlotta Maria Zerbi

GROUP 5 Giovanni Brunetti 967489 - Ziqi Cui 961896 - Nefeli Lykka 961294 - Naz Ozkaragoz 961370 - Hatice Busra Ucer 961917

INDEX History of Monza Park.........................................................................03 History Management of the Monza Park 20th Century The Main changes Monza Park Analysis..............................................................................09 Accessibility Historic Buldings Villas................................................................................................................13 Villa Reale Villa Mirabello Villa Mirabellino Farmhouses.................................................................................................16 Cascina Bastia Cascina Casalta Cascina Cattabrega Cascina Cernuschi Cascina Costa Alta Cascina Costa Bassa Cascina del Forno Cascina del Sole Cascina Fontana Cascina Frutteto Padiglione Cavriga Cascina San Fedele Mills...............................................................................................................28 Mulini Asciutti Mulino del Cantone Mulino San Giorgio Others............................................................................................................31 Fagianaia Reale The Gothic Tower Temple Photographic Survey.............................................................................35 Activities......................................................................................................38 Autodromo Nazionale di Monza Running Cycling Swimming Horse-back riding Golf Club Greenery.....................................................................................................46 The English Garden The Rose Garden The Green Giants

Road Network...........................................................................................50 Viale Cavriga Viale dei Carpini Viale Mirabello Viale dei Tigli Viale dei Liquidambar Viale Cesare Battisti e Cortile d’onore della Villa Reale Rondò dei Liriodendri Rondò delle Roveri Rondò degli Ippocastani Rondò della Stella Water Network.........................................................................................62 Labro River Artificial Lake Roggia Molinara and Roggia dei Mulini Asciutti Roggia della Pelucca Roggia del Principe The Users....................................................................................................69 Swot Analysis.............................................................................................71 Historical & Cultural Natural & Ecological Society activity Service facility Economy Water System Entrances Parking Lots Road System Masterplan of Project...........................................................................83 Rectification Process............................................................................90 Project...........................................................................................................94 The Gothic Tower, the sculpture and photography club of Monza Park The Uses The Atmosphere The Materials The Details Panels..........................................................................................................103 Brenna Map and Comparison Map Swot and Geometrical, Material, Decay Survey Masterplan and Project Picture Sources......................................................................................107 Bibliography.............................................................................................109

HISTORY OF MONZA PARK

History The Monza Park was established on 14 September 1805 by the will of the Emperor Napoleon with the aim of making it a model agricultural estate and a hunting reserve. Construction began in 1806, at the behest of Viceroy Eugene of Beauharnais, on the land north of the Villa and the Royal Gardens built by Maria Theresa of Austria as early as 1777. From an epistolary document of her, her mother Giuseppina Bonaparte asked her son Eugenio to build a park larger than that of Versailles. The wish will be granted: in fact, while Versailles occupies an area of 250 hectares, the Monza Park will be 700 hectares. The first evidence of the institution of the Monza Park is reported in the III Constitutional Statute of June 1805 in which there is talk of a considerable amount of Milanese lire, destined for the “construction of the two estates in Monza and the Ticino park”. In September of the same year an imperial decree was issued for the construction of the park in the Monza area, with the aim of making it a model agricultural and hunting estate. In those years Luigi Canonica, originally born in Swiss, student of Piermarini, was a “National” architect of the French court and was thus entrusted with the design of the work, which he himself considered in a letter as an “extraordinary task”. The new park extends towards the north, almost touching the first hills of Brianza. The land, about 5 sq km wide, was bought by the local owners, mainly the Church and noble families, such as the Durini and Gallarati

Scotti. The land was acquired in three stages, from 1805 to 1808, proceeding immediately after the construction of the surrounding wall, using, among other things, the remains of the medieval city walls. Around 1808, the Monza Park thus became the largest enclosed park in Europe, with a 14 km long fence wall. Inside the walls were included agricultural fields, roads, farmhouses, villas and pre-existing gardens and now all part of the complex, almost a compendium of the Lombard agricultural territory. The significance of this operation was above all political: in fact the construction of a park like Versailles would have caused discontent among the local population, while the Monza Park, kept as an agricultural estate, with botanical greenhouses, gardens and orchards, was partially justified. The Canonica models and modifies the existing structures, demolishes the “crumbling structure” farmhouses and instead preserves the important landscape complexes such as the Mirabello and Mirabellino villas, transforming and softening them with elements of neoclassical style in connection with that of the Royal Villa. Three main areas were identified, corresponding to different natural environments: the area close to the Villa Reale, to the south, with a garden and open countryside; the northern area, certainly the most suitable for this purpose, was planted with woods, the so-called “Bosco Bello”, mainly functional for hunting; 04

the strip along the Lambro river, in a lower position than the villas and the central agricultural part, maintained with riparian vegetation from a humid area. To connect the different areas of the park, Canonica created a main north-south axis, viale Mirabello and its continuation, viale del Gernetto, which leads to the “Rondò della Stella”, in the center of the “Bosco Bello”. Across this avenue a network of secondary avenues distributes the routes throughout the Park. The structuring of the vast agricultural and wooded territory with the adaptation and transformation of the farmhouses and the important architectures of existing villas within the Park territory, the construction and reorganization of wide straight tree-lined avenues, the modeling of the land and the ‘adaptation of the water system to the new needs of the Park, have created an unprecedented Park, still today, unique in its kind.

pic 1 - Plan by Luigi Canonica depicting the future park (around 1805).

Management of the Monza park The period from 1807 to 1900 saw the succession of numerous users and managers of the Park, who, while exploiting the structure, kept it intact. In May 1814 the Austrian troops returned to Monza and in 1814 Ranieri, named Viceroy, took possession of the Royal Villa and the Park. As a political action, in order to meet popular favor, the Park was open to the public, but only at set times, “every Sunday from the mid-touch to Ave Maria in the evening”. In reality, from 1820 to 1860, the Habsburg administrative management was marked by the search for complete economic self-sufficiency and in any case maximum profitability, all improving and enriching the structure. Inside the park there were real “companies”, including the “royal nurseries” which, in addition to serving the park, operated on their own and sold the plants to third parties. Agricultural products, including grapes and mulberry leaves for sericulture, were exploited and sold. Even dry leaves and dead stumps (to be uprooted by the buyer) had a selling price. Finally, an aspect in itself was represented by the woods, which were excluded from any form of rent and strictly dependent on the Royal administration. The administration organized the agricultural and hunting estate according to very precise and strict written procedures and regulations. The Park territory was divided into plots (colonies) and given to renters who paid the rent partly in money and partly in “nature”. There

was also a specific regulation for this relationship. The penalties for violating the regulations were very high and were applied with “Habsburg” severity. It is reported the case, for example, of a poacher, caught in the act while capturing by means of a trap, a pheasant inside the park, which is imprisoned for ten days and, subsequently, immediately stripped of all his belongings and evicted from home and fields with the whole family. A series of products were introduced into the Park for the purpose of agricultural experimentation. We know, for example, of lupine cultivation and olive oil production, with a press housed at the Mirabello. In August 1858 the park was closed to the public again, in view of a radical transformation program for which the Austrians thought of reducing, following the example of the great German parks, the agricultural estate in a natural area with only meadows and woods, leaving free the animals. The project vanished and in 1860 the park passed to the Savoy family who reopened it to the public in 1864. King Umberto I of Savoy stayed for a long time in Monza, above all due to the proximity of a woman he loved, the Countess Litta, whose villa in Vedano was adjacent to the royal estate. Thanks to the sovereign, the park maintained its primitive splendor until 29 July 1900, when Umberto was killed right in front of the Royal Villa.

20th century The son of Umberto I, Vittorio Emanuele III, did not like the Monza estate, perhaps because he recalled the death of his father and so he disinterested it, giving it, in 1919, to the National Combattenti Opera. The institution, trying to make an immediate profit and above all to meet the management costs, proposed design solutions including the racetrack, the racecourse and the golf course. In 1920 the park was sold to a consortium formed by the Municipalities of Milan, Monza and the Humanitarian Society. In turn, the consortium granted large parts of the Park to third parties. In the last decade, following some safety measures on the racetrack, the Lombardy Region, in collaboration with the interested Municipalities, the Parco della Valle del Lambro and the Superintendency of Monuments of Milan, has developed and financed a three-year program of extraordinary interventions for the redevelopment of the Park and the structures it contains, which includes, among other things, the rehabilitation of the woods, the restoration of historic villas and farmhouses, and the improvement of the use of the Park.

THE MAIN CHANGES 1861 - Reopened to the public The Park and the Royal Gardens would have been open until 1 August 1857, when it was thought of the abolition of the agricultural colony established there, in favor of a resizing of the park itself, accompanied by a greater development of the lawn and woodland areas. After the Austrians fell, the project was never implemented, and with the unification of Italy in 1861 it was reopened to the public by the new owners, the sovereigns of the House of Savoy. 1922 - The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza In 1922 an area of 370 hectares has been guaranteed to SIAS (Society for the Increase of Motoring and Sport) in the north-western part of the park, for the construction of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, that was built in a record time of 110 days. This new the racetrack, known as the “Temple of Speed” makes the city known internationally.

pic 2 - The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in 1922.

1922 - The Hippodrome Also in 1922 , SIRE (Society for the Encouragement of Equine Breeds) also obtained a concession of about 100 hectares for the construction of the Mirabello Hippodrome , completed in 1924 . It was built in a more central area of the park, located between Villa Mirabello - from which it took its name - and Villa Mirabellino. In 1976 the racecourse fell into disuse, and in 1990 a fire destroyed what was left of the wooden stands. 1928 - The Golf course In 1928 the golf course was built in an area of 90 hectares in the northeastern part of the park, next to the racetrack. The first project, entrusted to the English architect Peter Gannon and former army major Cecil Blandford - considered at the time among the best golf designers - consisted of eighteen-hole course. Architect Piero Portaluppi built the club house, for which he adapted the old Fagianaia Reale. In 1958 the golf course was further expanded, with the creation of a twenty-seven-hole course and the construction of a new clubhouse by architect Luigi Vietti.

pic 3 - An old photo of the Hippodrome of Monza.

MONZA PARK ANALYSIS

ACCESSIBILITY

Monza Park (Parco di Monza) is a large walled park in Monza, Lombardy, northern Italy. Extending over an area of 688 hectares (6.88 km2), it is also considered the largest walled park in Europe, and the fourth largest enclosed one after la Mandria of Venaria Reale (Italy), Richmond Park in London (England) and the Phoenix Park in Dublin (Ireland). The park was commissioned by Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, during the French occupation of northern Italy, as external part of the garden of his royal palace (the Royal Villa of Monza); it was completed in 1808. The park is crossed in its southern sector by the Lambro river.

Monza Park Monza

Monza park - Milan How to reach the Park: - By car, parking at the proper paying car park, located on the right side of Viale Cavriga, entering from Porta Monza. - By bus, lines Z201, Z208, Z221 passing in front of the station. - By train, lines Milano/Monza, Como/Monza, Lecco/Monza, Lecco/ Molteno/Monza, Bergamo/Monza. From the station you can then take bus Z221 or have a 30 minutes walk. Accessibilty Monza Municipality, in collaboration with Union of Commerce and 12 volunteers, 5 of them disabled, has started a campaign to conduct a census of the public places accessible for the disabled. About 90% of the business stores supervised is accessible, even if sometimes with the help of the staff. On the Municipality website you can find a map with all the public places supervised (about one hundred), underlined with a special icon which represents its grade of accessibility. If you click them, you can discover further information. It is also possible to confirm the accessibility through the app for Android (here) or through the Totem around the city of Monza (station, Municipality - IAT tourism information, autodromo, Villa Reale).

Milan Diagram of connection between Milan, Monza and Monza park

HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

Villa Reale Built by Giuseppe Piermarini between 1777 and 1780, when Lombardy was part of the Austrian Empire, for the Archduke Ferdinard of Austria. Following the establishment of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, the building was used as a Royal Palace and became home to the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene de Beauharnais. With the fall of the First Empire (1815), Austria annexed the Italian territories to the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Monza being included in the province of Milan. In 1861, when the new Kingdom of Italy was established, the building became a palace of the Italian Royal House of Savoy. The Royal Villa was abandoned by the royal family in 1900, after the murder of King Umberto I as he returned from an event.The palace complex includes the Cappella Reale, or the “Royal Chapel”, the Cavallerizza (horse-shed), the Rotonda dell’Appiani, the Teatrino di Corte (“Small Court Theatre”) and the Orangerie. The rooms at the first floor include grand salons and halls, and the Royal apartments of King Humbert 1 of Italy and of Queen Margherita of Savoy. In front of the palace are the Royal gardens, designed by Piermarini as English landscape gardens. The building hosts temporary exhibitions, but lacked a long-term resident or use until July 23, 2011, when the palace complex housed offices from 4 ministries (Economy and Finance, Reforms, Simplifications, and Tourism).

pic 4 - The Royal Villa of Monza in a watercolor engraving taken from a daguerreotype.

pic 5 - The Royal Villa of Monza nowadays.

Villa Mirabello Villa Mirabello, an admirable example of architecture and seventeenth-century residence, was built towards the middle of the seventeenth century by the Durini family, who had bought the fiefdom of Monza in 1648. The Durinis built a beautiful villa, with large halls for parties and receptions, called “Mirabello”. Its “U” -shaped structure open to the river landscape, with a court of honor, is of great importance from a structural point of view, because it marks the transition between the typology of the country palace closed within walls, typical of the ‘400 - 500, and the new concept of palace-villa open to a spectacular garden or park. Restored and integrated in 1768, on the initiative of Cardinal Durini, who then lived there from that year, it became a “place of delights and a cenacle of writers”. In the Mirabello there are frescoes and decorations of considerable value; even more remarkable are the wooden coffered ceilings, a true work of art.

pic 6 - A postcard from 1917 representing Villa Mirabello.

pic 7 - Villa Mirabello nowadays.

Villa Mirabellino Built in 1776 by the by the architect Giulio Galliori to house the guests of his literary cenacle. The villa was also used for simple dinners on summer evenings, when the Cardinal loved to converse with friends. The Cardinal already owned a villa, Villa Mirabello, but he decided to build a smaller one, hence the name “Mirabellino” as an “annex”. The Villa stands on the slope facing the older Villa Mirabello. The two buildings are connected to each other by an avenue of hornbeams. The architect Giulio Galliori built the new villa that mirrors the first, with the wings of the U in the opposite direction, on the model of the lower and upper Belvedere in Vienna. In 1805 the two properties of the Durini counts, Villa Mirabello and Villa Mirabellino were expropriated by the French government, which had decided to equip the Royal Villa of Monza with a large park in the style of the Castle of Versailles. The façade was originally equipped with a semicircular staircase that has now disappeared. You can still admire the slightly protruding pronaos, framed by two lateral pillars and two central Doric columns, which extends out onto a balcony terrace. The pronaos was originally a portico which was then closed. The cross vault remains, frescoed with floral and geometric motifs. On the head of the northern wing, a portal indicates the entrance to the noble Durini chapel which has now disappeared. Between the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, Villa Mirabellino was the seat of a public boarding school

for children from families with health or socio-economic problems. The two wings of the building had spaces reserved for females and males (dormitories, study areas, bathrooms, changing rooms, indoor recreational spaces) while other spaces were common to both sexes (refectory, classrooms, gardens). At the rear of the villa there was a very large grassy garden that sloped down towards a grove whose access was forbidden to children. It was a truly commendable “charitable” institution. After being a school, the building was used as a trade union center.

pic 8 - Villa Mirabellino nowadays.

Cascina Bastia The entire complex is the result of the renovation of an older building, which took place between 1805 and 1825 on a design by the architect Luigi Canonica. Currently it has a long longitudinal wing that develops parallel to Viale Cavriga, probably originally intended for a stable. In the front position, a second building, recently renovated, is intended for residential use, while a third closes the courtyard with rustic arches and sloping roof, now home to bike rental. The farmhouse was completely renovated in the early decades of the nineteenth century by the architect Luigi Canonica who, between 1805 and 1825, experimented with architectural languages of neoclassical and neo-Gothic taste or rural tradition on various buildings in the Park of Monza (including Cascina del Forno, Bastia farmhouse, Orchard farmhouse, San Fedele farmhouse, Dry Mills etc). Due to its privileged development along Viale Cavriga and the strategic position on the edge of the park and near the Royal Gardens, not far from the Royal Villa, it is believed that the Cascina could be a stable, a function of central importance for the agricultural-productive role, of hunting reserve and place of pleasure of the Royal complex. The courtyard retains the rural charm of a rustic still dynamically active, a condition underlined by the neoclassical style wall faces, with a rustic portico that connects the two main buildings. The rural complex is made up of three main buildings arranged to form a U. To the north, the body of the build-

ing has a rectangular plan, has a portico and has brick pillars on the southern front and masonry on the northern front. The west body of the courtyard, which houses the bicycle and rickshaw rental, is also made of red brick and wooden floors. The last body of the building, to the south, houses some private homes.

pic 9 - Cascina Bastia nowadays.

pic 10 - Cascina Bastia nowadays.

Cascina Casalta Although the project is due to the architect Luigi Canonica, the Cascina was later completed by Giacomo Tazzini. The expansion project was instead curated by the court engineer Tarantola at the end of the nineteenth century, reworking and enhancing the late-neoclassical stylistic features that already distinguished it. The building develops around a rustic courtyard overlooked by stables and barns. It is currently intended for residential use. The Cascina is made up of five buildings, four of which (corresponding to the premises of Cascina Casalta Nuova and annexed barns) arranged around a central courtyard, forming a U-shaped plan. The arched entrance, in the center of the facade, introduces the internal courtyard, enclosed by buildings used as stables and barns. The oldest part of the building was in fact designed to house the “massari” employed in the park. All the buildings are made of solid brick masonry, with wooden or brick floors and pitched roofs with a tiled mantle. They also have a two-storey loggia supported by neoclassical columns in granite with an octagonal base. The current neoclassical style wall facings, which reproduce terracotta bricks, retain the original granite columns of the loggia.

pic 11 - Cascina Casalta nowadays.

pic 12 - Cascina Casalta nowadays.

Cascina Cattabrega Cascina Cattabrega, built on the site where an older building had previously been demolished, retains its nineteenth-century appearance with eclectic vestments commissioned by the architect Tazzini. The main façade is rather lively: the central part of the façade is cuspidated and completed in a symmetrical way by double-height porticoes with wooden gallery; the rectangular windows are surmounted by brick arches, as well as flanked by four oculi placed symmetrically and in a column on the side of the facade. The oldest drawings relating to the farmhouse include plans and elevations signed by Tazzini himself. Among these, the plans of 1829 and 1836 record the changes made on the oldest part of the complex, located at noon. The project on the Cascina envisaged the layout on a square plan with two floors like most of the farmhouses in the park, with a stable and compartment for tools on the ground floor and rooms for residential use on the first floor. Characteristic element is the access to the stables, which takes place through the crossing of a large transversal corridor that connects the two porticoes of the building. Today the farmhouse, intended for the breeding of horses, shows no significant changes compared to the latest drawings drawn up in 1884 by the engineer Tarantola, except for small details in the façade where the central window has been replaced by a rounded rounded arch, which forms a slight indentation with respect to the facade wire.

pic 13 - Cascina Cattabrega in 19th century.

pic 14 - Cascina Cattabrega nowadays.

Cascina Cernuschi Accessible via a tree-lined avenue from Viale Mirabello, the building has a T-shaped plan, with the stables to the east and the farmhouse to the west (today the Carabinieri barracks on horseback), connected by two rustic side courtyards, in the largest of which find a drinking trough. The late-neoclassical facades are marked by windows characterized by frames and tympanums of different shapes, equipped with shelves and contours in relief on the gray plaster that imitates stone. During the numerous alterations, the decorative apparatus has remained almost unchanged, although the finishes have been updated according to the fashion of the early twentieth century, with the use of concrete and synthetic stones. The farmhouse, now the seat of the Carabinieri on horseback, is made up of two bodies arranged in a T. The body to the west has brick perimeter walls, wooden floors with primary and secondary warping and roofing in brick tiles. The body to the east (a rustic porticoed building inside which the military quarters have been obtained) has brick walls and is covered with coppo tiles. The stables, rectangular in shape, have brick walls and prefabricated reinforced concrete floors. The roof, with 4 connected pitches, is in tiles. Tazzini had already indicated some transformations to be carried out on the Cernuschi farmhouse. Among the changes made since the mid-nineteenth century we note the rotation of the entrance axis, the insertion of a tur-

ret and the extension of the arcades on three sides of the building. On the ground floor there were the stable, the small chicken coop and the large kitchen with fireplace, while the upper floor was intended for the bedrooms and the granary. The pre-existing part is thus incorporated into the new building and surrounded on three sides by a large portico overlooked by the stables. The facades of the farmhouse are well designed, marked by numerous windows, with shelves and contours in relief that differ on the three floors. These have not undergone changes except, probably, in the finishes, adapted to keep up with the trend of decorative concrete and synthetic stones of the early twentieth century.

pic 15 - Cascina Cernuschi on a picture from 1908.

Cascina Costa Alta The building, characterized by three buildings around a rustic courtyard, is located in the northern area of the park, between a wooded area and a viewpoint that extends over a large grassy parterre. The project was developed by Giacomo Tazzini around 1824, when he took over the direction of the works in the Park after having worked alongside the Canonica for 8 years. Cascina Costa Alta, designed by the architect Giacomo Tazzini at the beginning of the 1920s, in the guise of “Architect of the Royal Buildings”, has a facade with arched windows and a crowning tympanum that recalls the compositional typologies of stately villas, completed by lookout. Due to the beauty of the main facade and the elevated position, which offered a view of a pleasant panorama, it was portrayed in the etchings of the Lose couple in the collection dedicated to the Promenade dans le Parc Impérial et Royal et les Jardins de Monza. The building, characterized by three buildings around a rustic courtyard, has a rectangular central body and symmetrical and square wings. The main front has a portico with six stone columns on the ground floor which leads through a central staircase to two rooms on each side, one of which is equipped with an oven. Under the portico an old stone well is visible on the right, while on the left side the structure has a masonry structure. Renovated in 2015 following the resolution of the municipal council, Cascina Costa Alta is now home to a youth hostel, with a multipurpose room on the first floor. It also hosts educational activities on the territory and the environment.

pic 16 - Cascina Costa Alta in 19th century.

pic 17 - Cascina Costa Alta nowadays.

Cascina Costa Bassa The farmhouse, of clear neoclassical taste, built in 1824 according to the project developed by the architect Giacomo Tazzini, develops around a central squareshaped hall and is located in a wooded area north of the park near the Porta di Biassono. The building, once used as a resting place for horses, now houses a day center for the elderly. Of clear neoclassical taste, the Cascina Costa Bassa, built in 1824 according to the project by the architect Giacomo Tazzini, has a compact plant with a central square-shaped hall, characterized by four columns, which leads to the two side rooms and the internal staircase leading to the upper floor. The main facade is characterized by a pronaos with four Doric columns (i.e. a colonnaded atrium in front of the central entrance of the building) surmounted by a triangular tympanum, while laterally it has a series of brick-decorated arches. The building, which has the characteristics of a stable with a central horse, was once used as a resting place for horses during royal walks; for this reason it was known as the “Horse Hospital” and as such portrayed in the lithographs by Carlo Sanquirico dedicated to the main views of the I.R Villa di Monza, printed in Milan around 1830. The farmhouse currently houses a day center for the elderly.

pic 18 - Cascina Costa Bassa in 19th century.

pic 19 - Cascina Costa Bassa nowadays.

Cascina del Forno Cascina del Forno, also Fornasetta, due to the presence of an ancient oven that no longer exists, was designed in 1780 as the residence of the Director of the Royal Gardens with adjoining storage rooms, porch and courtyard. The facade has a large gray stone portal, surmounted by a tympanum and a succession of windows with an arched brick frame. During the second half of the 19th century, the farmhouse underwent substantial changes, which however did not alter the quadrangular plan, affecting only the subdivision of the interior. The building develops with a U-shaped plan, in an area of approximately 653 square meters. The entrance is characterized by a large porch with two columns and access is through a driveway. On the ground and first floor there are the living quarters, including four bedrooms, wardrobe and open porch for the head gardener; two bedrooms, kitchen, corridor and porch for the gate guard; warehouse, seed and tool storage with room for the head gardener’s assistant. Some rooms were equipped with a fireplace, but no references have been found in documents or nineteenth-century drawings of the alleged ancient oven that gave the farmhouse its name. The facades have ornaments generally used in villas of delight more than in rural complexes, or in rustic buildings. The wall faces are in fact of neoclassical inspiration, with an entrance portal with vague reminiscences

of the sixteenth century and a triangular pediment in gray stone. Among the various uses, the farmhouse was for some time home to a company that raised guinea pigs. The information on the many transformations, which became necessary over time, for the adjustments mainly due to the modern hygienic needs of both farmers’ living and livestock breeding, were taken from the documents and drawings of the dedicated archive fund to the Royal Villa.

pic 20 - Cascina del Forno nowadays.

Cascina del Sole Located in the center of the “Valle dei Sospiri”, in the south-west area of the Park, near the wall that delimits the Royal Gardens, the Cascina is part of the plan of modifications made by the architect Giacomo Tazzini to the Park of Monza. On the back of the building, built in the same years, it is still possible to admire an old well, while on the facade the Lombard symbol of the flamed sun has recently been reproduced. The square-shaped building with continuous perimeter walls in solid bricks, wooden floors and a wooden hipped roof, can be classified as eclectic also due to the presence of the particular spire in the main facade. The farmhouse is now used as a refreshment point, with an adjoining gazebo and play area nearby.

pic 21 - Cascina del Sole nowadays.

Cascina Fontana Located in the center of the “Valle dei Sospiri”, in the south-west area of the Park, near the wall that delimits the Royal Gardens, the Cascina is part of the plan of modifications made by the architect Giacomo Tazzini to the Park of Monza. On the back of the building, built in the same years, it is still possible to admire an old well, while on the facade the Lombard symbol of the flamed sun has recently been reproduced. The square-shaped building with continuous perimeter walls in solid bricks, wooden floors and a wooden hipped roof, can be classified as eclectic also due to the presence of the particular spire in the main facade. The farmhouse is now used as a refreshment point, with an adjoining gazebo and play area nearby.

pic 22 - Cascina Fontana nowadays.

Cascina Frutteto The name of the building refers to the specific cultivation that was carried out around it: the so-called mathematical orchard recorded in the various tables dedicated to the Royal Park of Monza from the middle of the first decade of the nineteenth century. Designed by Luigi Canonica as a home for “two farm workers”, it was intended for two families, as can be seen from the distribution of the rooms, symmetrically arranged on the sides of the entrance hall. The typically Lombard structure features neoclassical wall faces and a lookout tower. In general, the complex maintains the volumes and elevations unaltered, as the architect had conceived them. Luigi Canonica, with a two-storey main building and an elevated central body with a turret with connected columns and an iron balustrade, flanked by two pairs of smaller buildings, placed laterally. The main facade has a large portico with arches delimited by square columns in river material that connects the main building to the side ones, while the north elevation is characterized by a double-height portal concluded by a round arch and a succession of windows of small size. The internal distribution included a large entrance hall on the ground floor, with kitchen, oven, warehouse and cellar for the home of the first “farmer” on the left, and kitchen, warehouse, bedroom and cellar on the right, intended for the second family employed at the complex rustic-residential.

The side buildings housed the vaulted barn for the cows, separated from the one for the oxen, to which the pigsty and chicken coop were attached, while on the first floor two corridors led to the rooms and connected the granary and the second floor mats. In order to accommodate the headquarters and the teaching rooms, the farmhouse has undergone a respectful restoration that has maintained the volumes and design of the original elevations, allowing for the necessary plant adaptations for the new functions. Originally designed in the center of a circular space with a north-south orientation, the farmhouse had two threshing floors delimited by semicircular spaces dedicated to the vegetable garden, in turn surrounded by a circular row of trees, a road, a canal, another row that runs it interrupted at the eight avenues along which it continued forming a radial pattern and where the cultivation of fruit trees was foreseen.

pic 23 - Cascina Frutteto nowadays.

Padiglione Cavriga Located in a raised position with respect to Viale Cavriga, the pavilion was probably the annex of some stately villa. The building with a central plan, with brick perimeter walls, was built in 1840 in neoclassical style to a design by the architect Giacomo Tazzini, who in those years oversaw renovations, additions and architectural additions to the buildings designed by the Canonica. The north and south sides are arcaded and on the roof there is a lovely terrace characterized by the same balustrade as the colonnade. The main front is characterized by a large triangular pediment under which four Doric columns rise to support flanked by square pillars, arranged along the side elevations of the building. Today it is used as a restaurant and service rooms.

pic 24 - Padiglione Cavriga nowadays.

Cascina San Fedele Due to its prominent position and rich eclectic-style decorative apparatus, Cascina San Fedele is one of the most popular subjects in lithographic collections dedicated to city monuments, or in nineteenth-century almanacs. The main façade, enriched by mullioned windows with marble frames and twisted columns, was made using some finds from the Church of Santa Maria di Brera, closed to worship in 1808 at the behest of Napoleon and destined to become the first nucleus of the nascent Brera Art Gallery. The architect Luigi Canonica also took part in the demolition of the splendid fourteenth-century façade, the work of Giovanni di Balduccio da Pisa. As a member of the Ornato Commission, Canonica was able to use some sculptural fragments found on site in the Gothic Tower of Villa Tittoni Traversi in Desio and in the decorative elements of the Cascina San Fedele in the Royal Park, designed and built within the first decade of the 19th century. . The interior rooms provided on the ground floor the kitchen with large oven, the well, the wash house and on the back the stables, the latrine and the chicken coops. Upstairs are the bedrooms, the barn with the storage room and the connecting staircase, with a central turret with a viewpoint over the surrounding landscape. Ideally opposed to the Neo-Gothic Tower, designed by the same architect in the Royal Gardens, the farmhouse is located at the beginning of a perspective telescope which was later extended to the portal built in the same

Neo-Gothic style. The first interventions on the building are due to the architect Giacomo Tazzini, who took over from the Canonica as Inspector and Architect of the Crown Buildings. In 1858 Tazzini in fact took care of the adaptation of some farmhouses for the reception of hunters, interpreting the wishes and hunting interests of Maximilian of Austria, who in those years resided with his court at the Monza residence. With the most recent refurbishment, dictated by the need to provide new uses, the farmhouse has begun to host summer camps, educational activities and events.

pic 25 - Cascina San Fedele nowadays.

Mulini Asciutti Built in 1834 on a project by Giacomo Tazzini, the Molini Asciutti consist of two buildings with a rectangular plan connected by a portico. In addition to the ancient millstones, you can still find a small oven for baking bread and the small bridge positioned in a corner of the courtyard. Even today it is possible to admire the operation of the mill with its old gears, visit the rooms where the stone wheels used for the various grindings are kept and access the two millstones and the controls of the locks. The Molini Asciutti, built in 1834 to a design by Giacomo Tazzini, have a system very similar to that of the Mulino del Cantone, with two buildings arranged symmetrically and connected by a third building containing on the ground floor a large porch that extends along the entire the cylinder head. In this case, as in the Mulino di San Giorgio, however, Tazzini seems more attentive to functional needs than to compositional ones, with a substantial reduction in decorative elements, which are limited to the insertion of frames, string courses and plaster mirrors in the wall facing in brick. The two parallel buildings, which enclose the main canal bed, recall the planimetric scheme of the main building, with a large arch in the center, surmounted by a gabled roof. The portico, placed transversely to the two blocks and covered by five arches, introduces the two millstones, the controls of the locks and the ground floor of each building. In a lateral and symmetrical position are the two large stables with barn, barn and shelter for tools, where environmental education and baking courses for children are currently held.

pic 26 - Mulini Asciutti nowadays.

Mulino del Cantone Restored several times, the mill is probably the only surviving find of the ancient defensive line to protect Monza, connected to the pre-existing structures of the nearby Villa Mirabello. In fact, from the nineteenth-century drawings it can be deduced that the building designed by Tazzini was almost certainly an adaptation of a pre-existing building, which already contained the belvedere tower, intentionally left incomplete, according to the romantic taste of the “ruins”. The architectural composition of the complex is dominated by the southern facade, which joins the two wings with a portico that hides the wheels of the millstones driven by the passage of the water channel. The classic entablature on coupled columns is surmounted by a pediment with a broken tympanum containing a window open only in the central element. The eclectic composition of the façade is completed by two circular windows with an exposed brick frame. The lateral bodies, with arches, allow the passage of the Roggia al Lambro, creating an interesting gallery effect between the bodies of the building, in correspondence with the mill lock. The exposed brick turret (and not plastered as in the rest of the building) ending with Ghibelline merlons and equipped with a small window to complete the whole: positioned on the north side it constitutes an interesting medieval find (dated around the 12th century) conforming to the romantic taste of “ruins”. Access to the property is currently limited and allowed with the prior authorization of the Villa Reale and Parco di Monza Consortium for study and research purposes.

pic 27 - Cantone Mill in a print by Sanquirico, from 1830.

pic 28 - Cantone Mill nowadays.

Mulino San Giorgio The Cascina owes its rural charm to the farming and agriculture that was practiced there and to the mills operated by the Lambro river. In fact, despite being partially restored, it still retains the original structure and the charm of the water mills which, when they were active, were operated by the derivation canal of the Lambro called Roggia Molinara. Il Molino is made up of two square-plan buildings with a central turret, separated from the Canal, with a large rustic access courtyard. The Mill, the last of those designed by the architect Giacomo Tazzini by 1857, is undoubtedly the most elaborate and interesting. The complex, already present with a previous configuration from the seventeenth century, is reworked with two imposing symmetrical blocks connected by a walkway at the wheels of the millstones, The two buildings, respectively intended for residential and agricultural use, are separated by the Roggia Molinara, the driving force through which the mills were operated. The complex is completed by two barns, arranged symmetrically to the Mill and structured on two floors with brick arches. The main façade is enriched by the architraved portico on the ground floor, while on the upper floor the double window is placed in correspondence with the central span and the tower above, which concludes the architectural composition of the facade. The façades towards the canal instead have a succession of window openings, whose formal simplicity is also guaranteed by the use of traditional materials, such as brick, log, plaster. The original structure of the complex, with a rustic taste and rural inspiration, included masonry pillars with bases in Lambro log and wooden floors, which were only later strengthened with metal supports.

pic 29 - San Giorgio Mill nowadays.

Fagianaia Reale The modest-sized building, which still retains its ancient noble appearance, stands near the Molini Asciutti and Cascina Casalta, and is characterized by a long treelined avenue extending from the main façade towards the vast grassy parterre that creates a splendid viewpoint over the surrounding wooded areas. The building develops in a two-storey central body with an open porch, and side wings characterized by a gable roof. The building, built in 1838 according to the design of the architect Giacomo Tazzini and then affected by restoration work by the architect Piero Portaluppi, was originally intended for the breeding of pheasants for the court’s hunting amusements. Probably for this reason, as well as for the care of the wall hangings, he was portrayed by Carlo Sanquirico, among the main views of the I.R Villa of Monza printed in Milan around 1830. The modest-sized building, which still retains its ancient noble appearance, stands near the Molini Asciutti and Cascina Casalta, and is characterized by a long tree-lined avenue extending from the main facade towards the vast grassy parterre, which creates a splendid viewpoint over the surrounding wooded areas. The building is structured according to a complex plan with a two-storey central body and an open porch, equipped with side wings with a gable roof. From the historical photos we learn that the buildings placed on the sides of the central building have been raised, with the formation of two open and symmetrical loggias and the formation of two balconies in correspondence with the side doors. The structure is made up of brick perimeter walls, wooden floors with primary and secondary warping and roof tiles. The building is currently used as a restaurant.

pic 30 - Fagianaia Reale in 19th Century.

pic 31 - Fagianaia Reale nowadays.

The Gothic Tower The building, of medieval inspiration, has a rectangular plan and develops in height on two floors, partially crowned by a battlements. The architectural layout is completed by a thirty meter high tower with an upper belvedere, also embattled. The decorative apparatus includes the coats of arms of Monza and the Sforza in the south elevation, a terracotta bas-relief with hunting scenes and a plaque with the coat of arms of the Habsburgs on the eastern side of the tower. Conceived as one of the main furnishings of the Royal Gardens, the artifact was built by the architect Giacomo Tazzini, who succeeded Canonica in the role of architect of the Royal Buildings, as a “fake castle with attached tower” adhering to the Gothic Revival fashion. Designed in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the turret ideally contrasts with the Cascina San Fedele, thanks to the expedient of a perspective telescope that ideally continues up to the neo-Gothic portal of the Royal Park. The building, which dominates the surrounding landscape on the top of a gentle natural slope, has a rectangular plan on two floors and a side portico, flanked by a crenellated tower. The perimeter walls are in brick and local stone, the log, traditionally used for Lombard architecture. The floors are wooden and have brick vaults in the basement and portico, while the roof is pitched in brick. The tower, thirty meters high, has a belvedere at the top that provides an excellent panoramic point

of the garden area, which was already arranged “in the English style” at the end of the eighteenth century, by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini. Some iconographic sources highlight the strong suggestion that a building of this kind could create in the romantic atmosphere conferred by the landscaping of the Villa Gardens. An etching entitled La Tour dans le jardin, designed by Federico Lose in 1826 for the Promenade dans le Parc Impérial et Royal et dans les Jardins de Monza collection, shows the turret finally completed and identical to what it looks like today. Since the artefact is not mentioned in the second edition of the treatise On the art of English gardens by Ercole Silva, printed in 1813, and the date of completion of the works does not appear in the first relief plan, signed by the architect Luigi Canonica. works can be placed in the twenties of the nineteenth century. In fact Canonica, after having decided to preserve the pre-existing “vineyard” within the area of the Royal Gardens, decided to enrich the shore of the upper lake with a new building, registered as a “casino of the Tuscan vineyard” in its “Tipo demonstrante il Parco joined to Caesarea R. Villa near Monza in the state to which it should be reduced “. However, the idea was only completed in 1822, when his successor Giacomo Tazzini decided to exploit the building of the old Tuscan casino to create a “gothic” building 32

with a turret. In a drawing of 1824, signed by Tazzini, the building is almost completed and equipped with a portico, a ground and upper room, and an adjacent circular tower with a spiral staircase, leading to a crenellated terrace. It is a real lookout tower built on the edge of the Royal Gardens, from which to enjoy the vast panorama of the adjacent hunting park. From the date of completion of the works it seems that the neo-Gothic tower has not undergone any substantial changes, except for those undertaken for the technological adaptation of electricity, gas and plumbing made necessary for the new destinations of use as a refreshment point. The building has also recently undergone a general renovation of the facades.

pic 32 - Oil painting executed in 1888 by the Italian painter Pompeo Mariani preserved in the Civic Museums of Monza.

pic 33 - Gothic Tower nowadays.

Temple An important element of Giuseppe Piermarini’s project for the new area of the garden annexed to the archducal villa, the artifact is probably the best-known piece of furniture of the landscape, typical of the English style revisited and updated in Italy. The neoclassical temple is also one of the focal points of the Royal Gardens, both as a decorative object portrayed in numerous nineteenth-century views, and as a viewpoint of the promenade which, through ascending and descending paths, runs alongside the lake. In fact, already in the original arrangement, the vegetation had been arranged with sensitivity and attention so that its image could be reflected in the lake water. Of classical inspiration, the temple qualifies as an important element in the layout designed by architect Giuseppe Piermarini, between 1778 and 1783 according to the English landscape style. Circular in shape and with a rectangular pronaos, the small building is an ideal resting place thanks to its raised position on the hill, among the foliage of trees and shrubs. Its picturesque image, which is reflected on the still waters of the Pond, forms the centerpiece of one of the most appreciated landscape paintings and portraits of the Royal Gardens. The Piermarinian arrangement is in fact documented since the early nineteenth century by many iconographic sources, engravings and descriptions, including the famous paintings by Martino Knoller, depicting the waterfall with a pond and the cave with nymphaeum, or

the engravings taken from the drawings of Gaetano Riboldi, published in 1801 in the treatise by Ercole Silva, Dell’arte de ‘Giardini Inglesi, with a view of the lake and the classical temple in the background (Plate XXXV). In fact, Count Silva had to provide Piermarini with more than a hint because even before publishing his work he had shared with Ferdinand of Habsburg part of the journey undertaken between 1783 and 1786 through France, Switzerland, Holland, England and Germany to visit the gardens of the “new style”, in order to import its fashion into Italy. Among the numerous testimonies of the enthusiasm aroused by the landscape garden, no less fascinating are the engravings by Federico Lose, published in the Promenade dans le Parc I.R. et les Jardins de Monza accompanying the almanac for the year 1827, or the views created by Carlo Sanquirico, both able to restore the beauty of a place where time has apparently ceased to flow. Later the architect Luigi Canonica also became interested in the artifact, and on the occasion of the completion of the Royal Gardens he undertook to restore the original copper roof of the temple. After various conservation interventions, the last of which involved the restoration of the nineteenth-century wall color, the temple is now going through a period of evident decay, the Villa Reale and Parco di Monza Consortium has started the procedures for its conservative pic 34 - Temple nowadays. recovery. 34

PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY

A photographic survey following the path we followed during the 8th of October.

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Photos taken during the inspection on the 8th of October 2020 and provided to us by the Professors.

The Royal Villa