|
The villa is an imposing three-storey villa, built at the end of 1600 by the marquis Giorgio Clerici.
The art collections are due to Gian Battista Sommariva, the owner from the beginning of 1800. There are masterpieces, most of all of sculpture, with works of Canova and its school, and of Thorvaldsen.
Among the paintings one of the most representative of the Italian Romantic art, “The last kiss of Romeo and Juliet” by Hayez.
Around 1850 the villa was given as a wedding present by the princess Marianna of Orange-Nassau to her daughter Carlotta (after whom the villa is named) who married George II, duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, very fond in botany, who developed and enriched the garden.
The great terrace garden, extended over a 70,000 m2 (17 acres), today boasts over 500 species of plants.
There are citrus arbours, camellias, 150 sorts of azaleas, rhododendrons, century old cedars and sequoias, tropical plants, the Fern valley, the Bamboos garden etc. |
