La Montesca was the aristocratic summer residence built by the barons Leopoldo and Giulio Franchetti in the second half of the nineteenth century, on the sloping side of Mount Arnato, designed by the Florentine architect Giuseppe Boccini. The villa overlooks the upper course of the Tiber and Città di Castello from a panoramic position: the typical landscape of the Valtiberina, with its gentle hills, cultivated plain and woods, frames this example of a nineteenth-century villa inspired by the Renaissance and Mannerism. The villa consists of three sections: the central one with three floors flanked by two projecting side wings, taller like towers, thanks to the covered loggia floor with a pronounced roof, in the Florentine style. Each façade is marked by an arched entrance portal, the arches of the porch, and windows with bugne in pietra serena stone. The interior of the villa is elegant, full of sumptuous rooms with paintings and sculptures by Clemente Marini, Giovanni Panti, Ernesto Bellanti, and Antonio Passaglia. The complex also includes the caretaker’s house, the lemon house, the guesthouse, and the Montessori school. It was at Villa “La Montesca” in 1901 that the free elementary school for farmers’ children was born, the place where Maria Montessori’s educational experience first took steps, called there by Alice Franchetti Hallgarten, an American wife of Senator Leopoldo Franchetti, a cultured woman gifted with an enlightened philanthropic spirit. At the front opens the large garden with a central basin. The English-style park, a true botanical garden, is rich in various species from America. The villa, owned by the Umbria Region, has maintained its educational vocation. It now houses a center for training and research.
Information on Villa Franchetti “La Montesca”
Via della Montesca,
06012 Città di Castello (Perugia)
075 8522185
info@montesca.it
https://www.montesca.it
Source: MIBACT
