Villa di Breme Forno, villa in Cinisello Balsamo, Italy
Villa di Breme Forno is an irregular horseshoe-shaped complex: a tall main block with a five-bay architraved portico facing west, flanked by lower side wings. It took its present form in the 1770s on an elongated earlier building, then received neoclassical features between 1808 and 1814, including a raised tympanum on the south front bearing the initials ABG.
The present building was erected in the 1770s on an elongated earlier structure recorded in the Catasto Teresiano as Filippo Archinto's rural property. Between 1808 and 1814 Marquis Ludovico Arborio Gattinara di Breme gave it its neoclassical form, adding the raised tympanum with the initials ABG on the south front. Carlo Martinelli, mayor of Balsamo, owned it in 1904; the Gualdoni family bought it in 1906 and split it into rented flats. The municipality acquired it in 1999 and reopened it on 24 April 2009.
The villa's name links three owners: the di Breme marquis, who commissioned the 1808-1814 neoclassical renewal, the Gualdoni family, who converted it into flats from 1906, and the Forno name. The public park behind it, once the English-style garden, is now called Parco degli Angeli after the police escorts killed at Capaci and via D'Amelio.
The site is located in the western part of Cinisello Balsamo at the intersection of via Diaz and via Martinelli, near the Church of San Martino. The gardens and surrounding park area are accessible to visitors, though the main building is currently used by the University of Milan Bicocca for teaching and research activities.
The park and front garden, now public, are named after the bodyguards of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino killed in the Capaci and via D'Amelio bombings; the park is called degli Angeli. Only a small part of the original English-style park survives, while the front garden keeps its size. The villa was inaugurated as the Bicocca university building U46 on 24 April 2009.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,111 contributors worldwide.