Villa of Mussolini and Historic Guests at Gargnano Revealed
The Villa of the Duce and Its Historic Guests
In approaching San Giacomo (north of Gargnano), heading towards the lake, the «Villa del Duce» can be easily identified. Benito Mussolini stayed there between October 1943 and April 1945. The fascist leader had just established the Italian Social Republic, the Salò Republic.
At the villa, Mussolini lived with his family. A few hundred meters away, in the Villa delle Orsoline (Palazzo Feltrinelli, a branch of the University of Milan, now used for conferences and Italian language courses for international students), Mussolini held his offices, while other government ministries were housed in nearby buildings.
There are documented and photographic proof of certain events, such as the accreditation of the German ambassador Rudolph Rahn, which took place at Villa delle Orsoline in December 1943, or that of the Japanese ambassador Sciurukuro Hidaka, who met Mussolini in March 1944.
Historical Figures and the Origins of Villa Feltrinelli
Other notable figures in the history of Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and World War II who stayed in Gargnano include the Italian general Rodolfo Graziani, the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel, and the strategist Albert Kesselring.
But the roots of Villa Feltrinelli are even older. Built between 1892 and 1899, with design attribution by some to Francesco Solmi and others to Alberico Belgiojoso, it is set within a magnificent park, surrounded by other former farm buildings once inhabited by caretakers and farmers, who managed the stables and lemon groves.
This was the period when the Gargnano family of Feltrinelli was experiencing economic growth and establishing its name among European financial elites, thanks to the timber trade and the launch, towards the late 1800s, of the Campione cotton mill, a factory-village active until about twenty years ago that employed 1,300 people.
Feltrinelli in Gargnano means schools, hospital, nursery, retirement home, all built by one member or another of the family. The same Carlo Feltrinelli, son of the publisher Giangiacomo— tragically killed at the foot of the Segrate power line tower about thirty years ago—devotes several pages to Gargnano and his Garda stays in his recent book «Senior Service», which reconstructs his father’s life.
The Villa was purchased twenty years ago by Immobiliare Regalini of Gussago. A few years ago, it came back into the spotlight. One of the real estate developers involved was also the name Jeb Bush, governor of Florida and brother of the current U.S. president.
In 1997, the turning point: the villa, acquired by Bob Burns, was converted into a luxury hotel.