Villa d’Este

Villa d’Este in Cernobbio was built between 1565 and 1570 for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, traditionally to a design by Pellegrino Tibaldi; from 1784 the Calderari family laid out the Italian garden, and since 1873 the villa has been a hotel. The garden, a national monument since 1913, preserves the seventeenth-century nymphaeum known as «il Mosaico», covered in polychrome pebbles in the manner of Roman Baroque gardens, in front of the water avenue rising to the fountain of Hercules and Lichas.

Between 2017 and 2018 RIVA restored the nymphaeum: the pebble mosaics, the niches with the amphorae and the statues, consolidating the detached portions and cleaning each material according to its fragility.

A slow site, made of reversible choices, which gave the garden back the original brilliance of its decoration.