“On the slopes of Mount Olimpino, opposite the port, there are five villas: Grumello, Sucota, Ceresaia, Tavernola, and Gerenziana, almost equidistant from each other.” This is what Paolo Giovio wrote in his short book “La descrizione del Lario” (1537), considered the first tourist and cultural guide to Lake Como. Confirmation that Villa del Grumello existed and was already of significant importance in the 16th century also comes from the map of Lake Como, inspired by the one that Giovio had painted in watercolors to accompany his publication, included in the first atlas in history, the “Theatrum orbis terrarum” (1570) by Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius, where it is marked on the shore of Borgo Vico as a point of interest next to the Gioviano Museum itself. It was Marquis Tommaso d’Adda who transformed it from a rustic farmhouse into a patrician villa around the mid-16th century. In 1775, Grumello became the property of the Giovio family, specifically Count Giovanni Battista, who was responsible for the renovation of the façade in neoclassical style based on a design by architect Simone Cantoni, the construction of the two side wings and, most likely, the gatehouse and stables, which have now been converted into guest quarters. Giovio hosted illustrious figures in this villa, including Alessandro Volta, Vincenzo Monti, and Ugo Foscolo. The latter had an affair with the youngest of the landlord’s three daughters, Franceschina. A passage from a famous farewell letter addressed to her on August 19, 1809, is quoted on the base of the poet’s bust, which the Celesia family, who succeeded the Giovio family as owners, placed in the park in front of the villa in 1884: “… returning one evening to Grumello and looking at the lake, the hills, and the house where I had first seen you, and thinking that I would soon have to leave them, my desire to stay there forever did not distinguish you from the places and people that had become so dear to me.” Since 2006, Villa del Grumello has been managed by the association of the same name as a cultural center, and in 2019, a garden was created in its park featuring the main plants mentioned in “Naturalis Historia.”
