Bicocca degli Arcimboldi

The Bicocca degli Arcimboldi is an Italian villa built in the second half of the 15th century as the country residence of the Arcimboldi family. Once situated in a totally rural area not far from Milan, it is now located within the homonymous district, in a now totally urbanised context.

Subsequent to the period of the Aurea Repubblica Ambrosiana, during the second half of the 15th century, the noble Arcimboldi family of Parma had their country villa built in this area about five kilometres north of Milan. It owes its name of "bicocca" to the fact that it was a sort of stronghold or castle of modest proportions, located at the time in a totally rural context. Some studies have identified two reference dates within which to ascribe the period in which its construction would have taken place: firstly, 1464, the year in which the Banco Mediceo in Milan was built, from which the string-course frieze under the reredos with the motto droit semper is said to derive; secondly, 1488, the year of Hungary, the mission of Guido Antonio Arcimboldi to the court of Matthias Corvinus, in commemoration of which he commissioned the decoration of the portico (now hidden by later graffiti). After the extinction of the Arcimboldi, which occurred in 1732, the villa passed to the Arconati, then to the Busca and later to the Sormani. During the first decade of the 20th century it underwent heavy restoration probably directed by Luca Beltrami and carried out by Ambrogio Annoni, architect of the Sovrintendenza. The restoration, of a historicist nature, saw the reconstruction in style of some parts of the building, starting from some original traces or following an analogy with some similar buildings of the time. Several chimneys were inserted on this occasion and, on the eastern front, a bell gable with a clock. In the course of 1918, the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi finally passed into the hands of the Pirelli, who had established here at Bicocca the new production district of Pirelli. The small villa became the site of the rubber museum and the nursery school for the children of workers employed at Pirelli. In 1933 a second restoration was carried out, again by Ambrogio Annoni, which main

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