Palazzo Bolongaro: A Historic Residence and Rosminian Centre in Stresa
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Sardinia
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page9 sections
History
Palazzo Bolongaro, also known as Casa Bolongaro, is an eighteenth-century residence in Stresa, Italy, built during the second half of the eighteenth century and known as the “Golden House.” Its history links the commercial success of Giacomo Filippo Bolongaro with the religious and intellectual activity later associated with Antonio Rosmini and the Rosminians, the religious community founded around his work.
Giacomo Filippo Bolongaro and the residence
Giacomo Filippo Bolongaro commissioned the palace after returning to Stresa in 1770. He had left for Frankfurt in 1723 as a poor child to help his uncle Giovanni Antonio Mattei in the tobacco trade. After developing a successful tobacco blend in Germany and the Netherlands, he accumulated a fortune and established the Stresa residence on the model of his Frankfurt home, the Bolongaropalast.
The estate originally reached the lakeshore. Bolongaro received travellers there and offered accommodation to young people from Stresa who were leaving to seek work, often providing them with a new suit of clothes. After his death in 1780, the property passed to his niece Anna Maria Simonetta in Borgnis. Widowed at the age of 36, she resumed her original surname and became known as Madame Bolongaro.
Anna Maria Bolongaro and Antonio Rosmini
Anna Maria was a devout and charitable woman whose household continued to receive many guests. She first met Antonio Rosmini in 1827, when he was travelling toward Domodossola to assess the construction of a religious institute. Rosmini, a nineteenth-century Italian Catholic priest, philosopher, and founder of the Rosminian religious institute, became a regular guest at the villa and established his residence there in 1836.
Anna Maria transferred to Rosmini the land on which the Collegio Rosmini was later built. When she died in 1848, she bequeathed Palazzo Bolongaro to him as an expression of her esteem, gratitude, and appreciation for the benefit he had brought to the people of Stresa.
The Rosmini residence
Rosmini lived at the palace from 1850 to 1855, turning it into a meeting place for Italian and international intellectuals. Guests included Alessandro Manzoni, Ruggiero Bonghi, Niccolò Tommaseo, John Bosco, Cardinal John Henry Newman, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, and the marquises Gustavo Benso di Cavour, Arconati, and Boncompagni, as well as the counts Collegno and Cibrario. Théophile Gautier described Manzoni’s philosophical discussions with Rosmini in late 1850. Rosmini died on 1 July 1855.
The Villa Ducale and later ownership
After Rosmini’s death in 1857, the Rosminians transferred the villa to the House of Savoy, the dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Italy after unification. The property became a residence for Elisabetta, Duchess of Genoa, and thereafter was known as Villa Ducale. It became a regular meeting place for kings, princes, and sovereigns.
Elisabetta, who was born in Saxony and married a son of Carlo Alberto, brought her children, Prince Tommaso and Princess Margherita, to Stresa. Margherita later married Umberto I of Savoy and became queen of Italy. During the Villa Ducale period, the building gained a raised third floor for servants, a boundary fence, and an enlarged park. Two cedars of Lebanon were transplanted from the Savoy residence at Aglié.
After the Duchess of Genoa died, the villa passed through several owners and underwent a period of abandonment. The garden became progressively smaller, while the interiors were gradually stripped of furnishings and ornaments. In 1942, Rosminian Fathers acquired the property and renovated it for use as a college.
The Rosminian centre
Since 1965, Palazzo Bolongaro has housed the International Centre for Rosminian Studies. The centre preserves the Museum of Rosminian Memorabilia, including the room in which Rosmini died, and maintains a library of approximately 110,000 volumes. The building’s successive roles as a merchant’s residence, a ducal villa, a college, and a centre for Rosminian study give it a history extending across commercial, aristocratic, religious, and intellectual life.
Remains
Palazzo Bolongaro stands within a garden of approximately 13,000 square metres. The original estate extended to the lake, but the grounds later contracted. The residence follows the model of Bolongaro’s Frankfurt home. Its uppermost floor was rebuilt several times, and the third floor was raised during the Villa Ducale period to accommodate servants. A boundary fence and an enlarged park were also added then.
Palace and interior spaces
Architects Pietro Bottini and Augusto Guidini worked on the interior embellishment and on the construction of the third floor. Both the interior and exterior were completely renovated and repainted in 1990 with the approval of the Piedmont Region. The Rosminian museum preserves Rosmini’s death room, while the centre’s library contains approximately 110,000 volumes.
Garden and historic trees
The garden contains palms, Osmanthus fragrans, Magnolia grandiflora, very old camellias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. A notable group of Magnolia grandiflora developed over the centuries through layering. The estate also retained two trees transferred from the Savoy residence at Aglié. One cedar of Lebanon was transplanted in 1860 and felled in 2009 because of disease. The second, identified as Cedrus deodara, was felled in August 2022 after dying from parasites and the drought of winter 2021. Its trunk had a circumference of more than 7.30 metres at the base.
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