Villa Giulia, Neoclassical villa on Lake Maggiore in Pallanza, Italy.
Villa Giulia is a neoclassical villa on the Lake Maggiore waterfront in Pallanza with stone facades extending across multiple levels and columns on each floor. An English-style garden connects the building to the lake, creating a natural transition from the architecture to the water's edge.
Bernardino Branca built three small villas on land at Castagnola; the first was sold in 1848 to Marietta Sertoli and in 1851 to Swiss general Guglielmo Müller. Giuseppe Branca bought it around 1880, named it after his wife Giulia, and in 1882 had the original building demolished and rebuilt ten metres forward. After 1932 it became the Kursaal casino.
The name Villa Giulia honours Giulia Villa, wife of Giuseppe Branca, who bought the property around 1880. From 1932 the CST turned it into a municipal casino called Kursaal, with dance evenings in the park. Gaming ended after World War II, but it remained a ballroom and events venue; since 1996 the Comune di Verbania has used it for exhibitions and shows.
The park is open to the public and the villa stands on the Pallanza lakeshore. The dock built for steamers can now only be used when the lake is high, and the artificial grottoes were removed in 1959. The building is used by the municipality for exhibitions and shows.
The first retaining wall toward Lake Maggiore, built by a local firm, collapsed during a drought in 1879 because its foundations rested on unstable ground. Engineer Gallizia of the Milan civil engineering corps anchored the replacement works to the rock layer beneath the topsoil. Remains of the original staircase still emerge from the water during dry periods.
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