Villa Carlotta - Lake Como - Italy

Villa Carlotta is located in Tremezzo on Lake Como in a spectacular location from where you can see Bellagio peninsula and the mountains surrounding the lake, it's an impressive building but simple, which was built in Baroque style in the first years of '700 by Marquis Giorgio Clerici. In the nineteenth century the villa passed to Count Gian Battista Sommariva, an art collector and a personal friend of Napoleon, enriched the villa with wonderful masterpieces, including works by Canova, and deluxe furnishings. 
In 1843, Villa Carlotta was purchased by Princess Marianne wife of Albert of Prussia, later was given to his daughter Charlotte, from her the villa took its name when she married George II, Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, and today is a property of the state famous for art collections that preserve and the large botanical garden. Inside the villa you can admire the beautiful works, breathing a real atmosphere of nineteenth-century house-museum. Among many marvels don't miss: Marte e Venere of Luigi Acquisti, the beautiful frieze of Bertel Thorvaldsen, Tersicore of Canova but also Palamede and the Maddalena always of Canova, Paride e Venere of Fontana, Amore con la colombe of Luigi Bienaimè, and the famous group of Amore e Psiche by Adamo Tadolini su modello di Canova In the Pogliachi's room admire the precious dattiloteca nineteenth century of more than 400 casts of cameos and beautiful paintings like: La spezieria dei frati of Giovanni Migliara, Ultima Comunione di Atala of Pierre Jèrome Lordon and several paintings by Francesco Hayez, including "L'ultimo bacio di Giulietta e Romeo." On the second floor of Villa Carlotta you can see Sassonia Meiningen residence with period furniture and a large gallery decorated in Pompeian style. 
Then the beautiful garden of Villa Carlotta, edited mainly by Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, who was fond of botany, where you can admire beautiful buildings and many plants and more than 150 varieties of azaleas, camellias, ancient, redwoods, cedars, plane trees, essence exotic, ferns, rhododendrons and a bamboo garden. 
Do not miss the "Old tools museum" that preserves agricultural equipment used by gardeners in Villa Carlotta from the beginning of the twentieth century. ( source viaggiatore.net )