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Villa Monastero
Located in Varenna on the road towards Fiumelatte the villa Monastero has developed on an ancient Cistercian female monastery.
During the seventeenth century the building was transformed into a holiday residence after the purchase of the Mornico, from Valsassina. In 1800 it had several owners and in the second half of the nineteenth century the villa underwent great restorations. At the end of the nineteenth century the German W.E.J. Kees took over; he contributed to enrich the garden with decorative architectural elements and numerous exotic essences, especially from the Far East, according to the taste of the time.
Confiscated in 1918, it was purchased in 1925 by dr. Marco De Marchi who gave it to the State. Recently it has passed to the Province of Lecco which, after suitable restorations, has entrusted its management to the Villa Monastero Institute, an instrumental body of the same Province. For over fifty years it has hosted congresses and various cultural and scientific events: in 1954 it hosted some lessons of the Enrico Fermi Nobel Prize, to which the conference room is now dedicated.
It has now become a museum with the establishment of the Villa Monastero House Museum, which has an exhibition itinerary consisting of fourteen rooms that can be visited and opened to the public.
