Villa Sioli Legnani di Bussero

Villa Sioli Legnani is a historic Villa built as a farmhouse at the end of the 16th century in Bussero. Since the 17th century, by will of the Gorini Corio family, owners of the property, it has taken on the current form of “Casa da Nobile”. Interesting is the figure of the enlightened and literary Marquis Giuseppe Gorini Corio, the last member of the family, owner of the Villa. Giuseppe Gorini Corio had activated in his home a circle of intellectuals linked to the Enlightenment such as the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri and Cesare Beccaria.
Giuseppe Gorini Corio died without heirs, after several changes of ownership, in 1820 it was purchased by the rich silk industrialist Francesco Legnani, together with a vast landed property, of which the Sioli Legnani family has still had, for two centuries, almost entirely.
Francesco Legnani owned other properties in the Pavia area but chose to reside in Bussero with his family. Francesco was succeeded by his son Giovanni and Giovanni Legnani by his son Luigi, a refined and cultured art lover who called the best artists active in Milan in the first half of the 19th century to redesign his home.
In 1850, the Villa was then enriched by an English garden, designed and created by the famous architect Giuseppe Balzaretto (the same author of the current Indro Montanelli Gardens in Milan), commissioned by Luigi Legnani. The architect in turn availed himself of the collaboration of some great artists of the time such as Luigi Scrosati, Vincenzo Vela and Francesco Hayez, to bring precious decorations to the interiors of the residence.
In 1887, upon the death of Luigi Legnani without direct heirs, the Villa and the lands of the Legnani family were inherited by his nephew Steno Sioli of an ancient family originally from Solaro, near Saronno. An engineer specializing in agriculture, Steno re-channeled the agricultural land, built the current Parish Church, the Nursery School at his own expense and donated some land to the Curia to build the Oratory of San Luigi.
In the 20th century the Villa, now called Villa Sioli Legnani or, more simply, “La Legnana”, was used in the summer by the owner family and, subsequently, with Stefano Sioli Legnani it became the family home, linked to Bussero by agricultural interests after the foundation in 1957 of Cascina Formosa which currently constitutes the most important activity of the Sioli Legnani family.
Two wings were added to the central body of the Villa which form the Cortile d’Onore, a gatehouse and a small church dedicated to Santa Caterina at the behest of Emilio Sioli Legnani sr, father of Stefano, a man of letters and lover of the Milanese language.
Of great importance is the part called Orti della Legnana, located in the area once used as a vegetable garden for the employees of the “Cascina Formosa” agricultural company, now used for the cultivation of Anglo-Saxon-style flowers, in keeping with the Historic Garden, and equipped with a building – club house – called the “Cascinotto”, renovated thanks to the “Architecture and Rural Landscape” call promoted by the Lombardy Region with funds from the PNRR in 2022 and since then a venue for musical and educational events.
The balance between nature and historical environments that reigns in Bussero is remarkable, thanks to the ancient Villa whose “optical cone” still allows one to directly observe the Prealps without obstacles represented by the buildings of the human settlement. The physiognomy of Legnana, currently still in excellent condition, suggests more than the body of a single palace, an ancient village inhabited, in addition to the members of the family, by 17 other families who find serenity and balance in the wings and in the Rustic Court adjacent to the Villa.