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Castiglione Olona

Foto Castiglione Olona
Foto Castiglione Olona
Foto Castiglione Olona
Foto Castiglione Olona
Foto Castiglione Olona
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Places  of historical value  of artistic value around Milan (Italy): Castiglione OlonaLocated on two hills a few miles south of Varese, about halfway between the southern tips of Lake Maggiore and Lake Como, the village of Castiglione Olona has very ancient origins. According to a legend, even, it would date back to the year 401 after Christ, when the Roman general Stilicho installed a camp on whose traces the village developed.
As its name says, it is located at the river Olona.

A few years before the year 1000, a family invested in the fief of Castiglione Olona settled in the town. This family would later take the name of the town itself and, from this moment, its members will bring the surname "da Castiglione" or even just "Castiglioni". And it will be with this family that the city will become the protagonist of many historical events.

During the Middle Ages, Castiglione Olona, ??at that time equipped with a castle and defensive walls (the latter preserved in part up to the present day), is involved in the countless struggles and wars that characterize that period, especially those between the Visconti and Torriani families. The town is allied with Castelseprio, but also in conflict with it for some privileges that it claims.
Twice Castiglione Olona is besieged by the Milanese armies, but in both cases it resists.

The fame of Castiglione Olona is due almost entirely to Cardinal Branda Castiglioni, churchman, scholar and patron.
Born in 1350 in Milan, the life and the works of the cardinal will be, for the village of Castiglione Olona, something unique, whose reflections make him, even today, a key figure for the development of a town of enormous artistic and cultural value.
He transformed the town of origin of his family from a small agricultural village into a model town, enriching it with at their time state-of-the-art churches and buildings. To achieve this he hired artists and architects from Tuscany, in those times a beacon of culture and modernity at the European level. For this reason Castiglione Olona is also known as an island of Tuscany in Lombardy.

On the walls of the castle he built the Collegiata (Large Figure) and placed next to it a baptistery that frescoed by Masolino da Panicale, the most brilliant of the artists he hired. He enlarges his home, today Palace Branda (Fig. 2), to which he adds new part for his family. Finally, he renews the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, known as Villa Church (Fig 3) because it is located in the center of the central square of the city, in front of the Castiglioni Palace. He also builds a palace, behind the Church of Villa, where today the town hall is located, which is dedicated to the culture and education of young people. It is the palace known as the Scolastica (Fig. 4), in which, up until 1880, children who had talent but few or no means to develop it could get an education. Branda Castiglioni will place a scholastic at the head of the school at the expense of the Castiglioni family.

Further buildings will be built in what is, even today, one of the historic centers of greater artistic value of Lombardy. Finally, the Palace of the Castiglioni of Monteruzzo, known as the Corte del Doro, now hosts the only Italian, and perhaps even European, museum of plastic art, the MAP.

Furthermore worth to be mentioned:

  • Monteruzzo Castle: Nineteenth-century building originally owned by the noble family of Castiglioni di Monteruzzo.
    The castle, located on a hill from which it is possible to admire the medieval part of Castiglione Olona, is currently used as a convention center.

  • Church of the Virgin in the Countryside: Built at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The main altar houses an altarpiece that is attributed to Morazzone by various experts.
    Opposite it, inside the churchyard, is furthermore the fifteenth-century Oratoriy of S.Maria Rosa.

In general the village is full of beautiful views, between ancient houses, gates and landscapes.

Categories: Places of historical value of artistic value


Castiglione Olona
Further pictures of Castiglione Olona in the section Photography
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Doorway
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Altar and apsis of the Church of the Most Holy Body of Christ
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Right wall of the baptistery of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Facade of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Room of the Cardinal in Branda Palace
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the Villa Church
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Apse of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence covered with renaissance frescoes
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Wall of the room of the Cardinal in Branda Palace
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Votive fresco in the Villa Church
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Small office room in Branda Palace
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Old houses of the village
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Vault and balcony
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Vault of the apse of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence frescoed by Masolino da Panicale
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Left apse of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Portal of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Sight from one of the windows of the great hall of Palace Branda
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Great hall of Palace Branda
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Frescoes around a window of the apse of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Frescoes on the facade of the School of Music and Grammar "Scholastica"
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Old house with balcony
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Detail of the right wall of the baptistery of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Back wall of the baptistery of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Chapel at the head of the right aisle of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Renaissance fireplace with baroque hood in Palazzo Branda
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Ceiling of the last span of the central nave of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Lunette of the portal of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Lateral entrance of the Villa Church
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Renaissance frescoes in the room of the Cardinal in Branda Palace
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Apse of the Villa Church
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the loggia of Branda Palace
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Statue of Virgin with Child in the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Gothic retable of the altar at the head of the right nave of the Collegiate Church of Santi Stefano e Lorenzo
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Symbols of Saint John and Saint Mark on the architrave of the portal of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Archway along the climb towards the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the Oratory of S.Maria Rosa in front of the Church of the Virgin in the Countryside
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Faun on the fireplace of the Branda Palace picture gallery
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Fifteenth-century bronze chandelier in the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the Church of the Virgin in the Countryside
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Interior of the baptistery of the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Fresco of the Triumphant Church in the Chapel of St. Martin in Palace Branda
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Upper part of the arch of the presbytery in the Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Main altar of the Church of the Virgin in the Countryside
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Western gate of Castiglione Olona
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Roses on the facade of a house of the historic center of Castiglione Olona
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Collegiate Church of Saints Stephen and Lawrence seen from the Castle of Monteruzzo
Castiglione Olona (Varese, Italy): Head surrounded by scrolls on a wall of the Hall of the Cardinal in Branda Palace