Villa Litta, Baroque villa in Milan, Italy

Villa Litta is a Baroque residence in Milan with a plain exterior that gives little hint of the richly decorated rooms inside. The interior walls and ceilings carry frescoes and rococo ornaments, including a painted cycle by Giuseppe Nuvolone on the main staircase.

Villa Litta's history begins in 1350, when Milan's archbishop Giovanni Visconti built a retreat here. In 1687 Marquis Pietro Paolo Corbella bought it and restored it to splendour; it then passed to Francesco D'Adda, husband of Marianna Corbella, and later to the Litta. In 1905 it went to the provincial administration and in 1927 to the Comune of Milan.

In the 19th century the villa was one of Milan's leading intellectual salons, regularly attended by Alessandro Manzoni and the painter Francesco Hayez. Today the main hall, the "Salone delle Arti", hosts periodic cultural events, and the building serves as a municipal library with separate adult and children's sections.

The villa now houses a municipal library, with reading rooms open to the public on weekday evenings until 23:00. The library is split into an adult section and a children's section, separated from the main staircase. The building is served by the Affori Centro and Affori FN stations on metro line M3, roughly equidistant, and by Milan Affori station on the Milan–Asso railway.

The 1350 origin attributed to the villa is earlier than the 1687 date of the present building: the archbishop of Milan Giovanni Visconti had a retreat here, and the marquis Pietro Paolo Corbella bought and renewed it in 1687. A judicial auction later brought it to Luigi Taccioli, whose daughter Margherita married Giovanni Litta Modignani in 1873.