Torre delle Arti

In Bellagio's old borgo, the Torre delle Arti is a town-owned exhibition hall associated with a volunteer cultural organisation founded in 2011.

Why it matters

The volunteer association has used the rooms for cultural activities, including exhibitions, theatre, poetry, seminars and public talks, with the stated aim of making culture accessible to residents and visitors. The association marked fifteen years of activity in 2026.

What to notice

The interior includes four small exhibition rooms, named Blu, Bianca, Gialla and Rossa. The association's programme has included painters and photographers working with lake and Lombard subjects, alongside theatre, lectures and recitals. The ground floor also houses Bellagio's tourist information office.

Context and history

The building stands in the Borgo, the oldest quarter of Bellagio that climbs between the basilica and the lakefront. It belongs to the Comune di Bellagio, which makes the hall available for cultural use, while the Associazione Torre delle Arti Bellagio — a body of volunteers led for years by president Anita Colombo — programmes and stewards it. The association's event archive reaches back to 2011, and its founders framed the project explicitly: to promote every form of art by confronting it with "gente comune", balancing accessibility with quality and the local with the universal. Past exhibitions have ranged from Byzantine icons to fibre art and retrospectives of twentieth-century Lombard painters, in collaboration with the municipality, PromoBellagio and other local organisations. The name refers to the venue and association; the interior is arranged as a civic gallery.