Villa Plinianina, Neo-Gothic villa in Torno, Italy

Villa Plinianina is a four-level block anchored to the rock above Lake Como at Torno, with four rows of openings on its facade. A three-arched Doric loggia with paired columns separates the first floor from the two above, where a covered loggetta of seven small Doric columns meets the broken pediments below. Built from 1855 in Venetian neo-Gothic style, it has terracotta ornaments and horizontal bands in old rose and light grey.

A house stood here by 1570, built by Giovanni Anguissola on the stretch of shore between Torno and Molina. The land belonged to the Caprera family, who kept vineyards and a house with garden; in 1839 it passed to Countess Alessandrina de Mondran, wife of Count Ernesto Tanzi di Blevio. In 1845 the patriot Filippo Caronti, a friend of Mazzini, bought it, and around 1855 the present villa rose for the Milanese railway engineer Canzio Canzi.

The name is a diminutive of the nearby Villa Pliniana, itself named for a spring Pliny the Elder described. The villa was built as a holiday home by Milanese railway engineer Canzio Canzi, who modelled it on the Gothic palaces of Venice and Verona. Its emblem appears as a decoration on the chimneys.

The villa is now divided into private apartments, so it cannot be visited inside; the lakeside setting can be seen from the water or from the road between Torno and Molina. At its foot are a small dock and a harbour with a few moorings, and in the park stand two later outbuildings, the former gatehouse and the former woodshed, both now used as homes.

The name "Plinianina" means "small Pliniana" and refers to the nearby Villa Pliniana, not to a spring on the property. The villa's coat of arms is carved into the chimneys on the roof, a detail easily missed from the lake. The grounds also hold two later outbuildings, a pink former gatehouse and a grey former woodshed, now converted to housing.