Description of the attraction
The Royal Villa is a historic building in Monza, in the Italian region of Lombardy, built between 1777 and 1780 by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini. In those years, Lombardy was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a luxurious villa was intended for the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand - it was supposed to symbolize the greatness of the Habsburg court. Ferdinand wanted to build a residence outside the city to live on in the summer and hunt in the surrounding forests.
Construction work on the villa began in 1777. Standing on the banks of the Lambro River and surrounded on all sides by the Monza Park, one of the largest parks in Europe, it consists of a central building and two side annexes. In addition, the palace complex includes the Cappella Reale (Royal) chapel, the Cavallerizza stables, the Appiani rotunda, the small Teatrino di Corte and the Orangerie. The rooms on the ground floor of the villa consist of large halls and spacious halls, as well as the apartments of the Italian king Umberto I and Queen Margaret of Savoy. In front of the villa there is a garden designed by the same architect Giuseppe Piermarini in the style of an English landscape park.
The Royal Villa was abandoned by the royal family after King Umberto I, returning from an event, was killed in 1900 right in front of his domain. Today, the building hosts exhibitions and other cultural events, and since 2011, it has housed the offices of four ministries - economy and finance, tourism, reform and rationalization.
