Palazzo Borromeo dell'Isola Bella

Palazzo Borromeo is the baroque residence at the northern end of Isola Bella, the island that the Borromeo family raised from a bare rock in Lake Maggiore into one of Europe's most celebrated theatrical ensembles. Together with the terraced garden behind it, the palace forms a single planned composition, and it remains the family's most public monument.

Why it matters

Few buildings anywhere demonstrate so clearly how architecture, landscape and water can be choreographed as one work. Begun in the mid-seventeenth century on what had been a fishermen's rock with two small churches and vegetable plots, the palace was conceived as the fixed prow of an island shaped like an anchored ship: state rooms and quay to the north, the rising garden and Teatro Massimo to the south. Work continued for nearly three centuries, and the post-war completion of the Salone Nuovo helped give the building its present outline. The result is a rare intact statement of seigneurial baroque taste, still owned and shown by the family that built it.

What to notice

Inside, more than twenty rooms trace several centuries of collecting and courtly life. Look for the Throne Room and the Queens' Room, the room commemorating Napoleon's stay, and the chamber hung with Flemish silk-and-gold tapestries. The Music Room carries a heavy political memory: it hosted the Stresa Conference of April 1935, where Italy, France and Britain met as the "Front of Stresa". The Galleria Berthier holds over 130 paintings, among them works and copies after Raphael, Correggio, Titian and Guido Reni. Below the state floor, six grottoes built for Vitaliano VI are faced with pebbles, tufa, stucco and marble — designed both to astonish guests and to cool them through hot summers.

Context and history

The Borromeo transformation of the island began under Giulio Cesare III and Carlo III in the early seventeenth century, but Count Vitaliano VI Borromeo is rightly considered its founder, driving the palace and garden forward from the 1650s. The name itself honours Isabella d’Adda, Carlo III’s wife. Architectural work never really stopped: successive generations adjusted rooms, facades and collections, and the post-war campaign of 1948–1958 completed the Salone Nuovo and contributed to the palace’s present form.