Villa Tittoni Traversi, Neoclassical villa and art museum in Desio, Italy.

Villa Tittoni Traversi is a Neoclassical villa and art museum in Desio featuring a U-shaped layout with a three-story main building and lateral wings surrounding a central courtyard with Corinthian capitals. The rooms house art collections arranged within this structured architectural framework that reflects the original aristocratic use.

The Cusani counts acquired the estate in 1651, but the present villa was rebuilt from 1776 by Giuseppe Piermarini, who was paid 60 gold zecchini in 1779 for the facade facing Desio. In 1817 Luigi Cusani sold it to the lawyer Giovanni Traversi, whose family had Pelagio Palagi remodel it from 1835, adding the three-order colonnaded facades and the neo-Gothic tower. Tommaso Tittoni inherited it in 1900 and commissioned Luca Beltrami to complete the monumental staircase.

The villa's name recalls three families: the Cusani, who bought it in 1651; the Traversi, owners from 1817; and Tommaso Tittoni, who inherited it in 1900 and held diplomatic conferences here. Ferdinando Cusani filled the estate with antique tombstones, statues and marbles, later moved to the Castello Sforzesco museums in Milan.

The villa is owned by the comune of Desio and houses the Giuseppe Scalvini library and museum. The gardens follow a free nineteenth-century English layout, so paths wind rather than run straight; allow time to walk from the iron gate and courtyard to the park side. The monumental staircase by Luca Beltrami leads to the upper floors.

The Neogothic tower named after Pelagio Palagi was modelled on the bell tower of the Chiaravalle Abbey. Palagi also converted the rooms of the adjoining former San Francesco convent into museum spaces. Ferdinando Cusani's collection of antique tombstones, statues and marbles was later moved to the civic museums of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.