At the origins of Villa Buri: one family, one story
A few kilometres from the centre of Verona, set within a 25-hectare park that slopes down to the banks of the Adige, Villa Buri is one of those places capable of telling centuries of history without raising its voice. It is not a museum, it is not a fenced-off monument: it is a living space, charged with layered memories, that welcomes those who want to discover the less touristy â but no less fascinating â face of the Scaliger city.
The villa is in the San Michele Extra district, in the Bosco Buri area, and is part of a monumental complex that includes the manor house, a family chapel, the stables, the barchessa, the steward's house and the rural buildings. A whole that, taken together, gives back the image of a great Venetian aristocratic estate, almost intact in its original structure.
The villa's roots go back to the seventeenth century. According to tradition, it was Gian Antonio Spolverini who had it built at the start of the 1600s to a design by Domenico Brugnoli, nephew of the famous Veronese architect Sanmicheli. The Buri, however, were already present in the area from 1574: a family of great influence, so much so that they obtained the title of count from the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
During the eighteenth century the villa became a salon of the local aristocracy, frequented by intellectuals, artists and illustrious travellers. A particularly striking visit is the one in December 1738, when the Duke of Lorraine and the future Empress Maria Theresa of Austria stayed there during a quarantine imposed by the plague epidemic raging in Verona. A detail that says much about the importance and prestige the residence held in the Europe of the time.
In 1776, with the marriage of Girolamo Buri and Isotta Spolverini, the villa entered a new season of splendour. It was their son, Giovanni Danese Buri, who turned the park into the English garden that can still be admired today, with exotic trees and wide views over the river. The intervention earned the praise of intellectuals such as Ippolito Pindemonte, among the most refined names in late-eighteenth-century Italian culture.
The nineteenth century consecrated it as a cultural centre, while the twentieth century saw it turn into a flourishing agricultural estate. But the villa's destiny was not without tragedies: at the end of the Second World War it suffered a devastating looting that scattered an extraordinary artistic heritage â frescoes, paintings, furnishings, manuscripts â that had taken centuries to accumulate.
What to see: the frescoes, the park and the secrets of the palace
Despite the losses, the villa's interior still preserves frescoes of great value. In the long entrance hall an allegory of the fertility of the Earth opens up to the visitor, painted on the ceiling with female figures and putti among the harvest's fruits. On the monumental staircase stands out the Apotheosis of a Count Buri, signed and dated 1734 by Antonio De Alessandris, a painter from Piacenza. In the meeting room â once a sumptuous dining hall â some of the liveliest pictorial cycles are attributed to Marco Marcola (1740â1798): scenes of aristocratic life, shuttlecock tournaments, sales of thoroughbreds, children playing in the garden, and even the amusing Loss at the Card Game, a portrait of a despairing nobleman before the last revealed card.
The park, today partially open to the public as Bosco Buri, deserves a visit of its own. The 25 hectares of greenery extend down to the Adige with rare species and exotic trees that the Buri wanted to plant as evidence of their curiosity for the world. An ideal place for a quiet stroll far from the chaos of the centre.
The family chapel, built by Alessandro Pompei around 1700 and originally dedicated to Saint Matthew, still preserves some funerary plaques of the Buri and the families related to them â Bernini, Spolverini, Guarienti â testimony to a network of aristocratic alliances that shaped Veronese social life for centuries.
Also not to be missed are the smaller but eloquent details: the clock of the servants' house, without hands (taken away by German soldiers during the war), or the two mosaic kiosks on the lawn to the north, where the Buri counts spent summer evenings with their guests.
Since 1992, every summer the park hosts the Festa dei Popoli, a multicultural event that draws visitors from all over the region and which has helped to give the villa back a public, community dimension. A presence that intertwines with the recent history of the place: it was during the 2002 Festa that the project to safeguard the villa was born, which then led to the founding of an association dedicated to its enhancement.
Want to visit other symbolic places of Verona? Try taking a look at our pieces on Palazzo del Capitanio and Palazzo Forti.