Villa Levi

Villa Levi is one of the most typical villas of the Reggio Emilia countryside, surrounded by an Italian-style garden and a wide park.

Address

Via Fratelli Rosselli, 107 - 42123 Reggio nell'Emilia

Opening times

It is possible to visit it only during events. The University of Bologna is the owner of the villa.

Historical notes

Villa Levi is one of the most typical villas of the Reggio Emilia countryside, characterized by the presence of the imposing metal dome and the giant colonnade on the south side. Surrounded by the eclectic-style park where are also monumental trees, it is fronted to the north by a long perspective avenue (about 680 meters) which gives the building a key role in the landscape. It is a distinctively neoclassical-style building, designed as a summer residence probably in the first half of the XVII century, but significantly remodeled between 1790 and 1810 by order of the Besenzi family, the first owners. The renovation project is by architect Domenico Marchelli and involved the introduction of the tympanum that slightly surpasses the building. Architect Marchelli also arranged of the wide "Italian-style" garden and bulit the two service buildings, which served as the caretaker's house and stable.

In the thirties of the XIX century, a second significant renovation was carried out by the Modena-born engineer and architect Luigi Poletti; he introduced the dome supported by a giant circular colonnade and the "new" south elevation, with the creation of a colonnaded pronaos and a monumental staircase that connects the ground level to the main floor. The villa thus acquires an influence that refers to Palladian influences.

The circular arcade was probably used for outdoor parties and small performances. Below the dome is a large circular hall that projects towards the park through the large windows. The villa passed to the Levi family in 1874; the interior decorations in Art Nouveau style may be traced back to the early XX century. It was then acquired by the Pelosi family in 1956 and by the University of Bologna in 1971, which made it the seat of the Animal Production Sciences course.

The interiors

Villa Levi Auditorium

The central hall, the former University Auditorium, is the largest and most majestic room in the entire Villa. It is here that, in the XIX century, gorgeous dances, parties and ceremonies took place with the most important aristocratic families of the town as protagonists. It is a hemispherical room characterized by a giant circular colonnade composed of 12 free columns in faux marble ending with a finely worked Corinthian capital. The interior of the double-cap dome is painted in a light blue colour, a choice that is anything but casual wanted by the Levi family. Very rich family of the Jewish community of Reggio Emilia, the Levi belonged to the Freemasonry. Masonic tradition has it that meetings ideally take place under the celestial vault, so as to be directly in contact with the spirituality of the universe. Indoors, however, in his ideal ascent towards infinity, the Freemason could find in the vault of the Temple a limit to his visual horizon: to avoid this, domes and vaults were painted blue or, in the most opulent cases, with the starry sky, so as to allow a symbolic opening towards infinity.


The dome

The dome of Villa Levi is the most characteristic architectural elements of the Villa, also because it is one of a kind. At Villa Levi are actually two domes: the first one, made in brickwork, is inside the building and serves as the ceiling of the Auditorium; the other one, the most famous, is the one seen from the outside. The latter, real masterpiece of architecture and engineering, unlike what you might think, is not made in brickwork, but entirely made up of a delicate intertwining of wooden planks covered externally with a thin layer of copper. Below the dome is a very suggestive hall, also known as "the two-dome hall", whose floor is made up of the dome which serves as ceiling of the Auditorium below and whose ceiling is made up of the outside dome. On the top of the dome is a balcony, reachable through a small wooden spiral staircase, which was used by the Levi family as a privileged astronomical observatory for stargazing. Inside the room, on the walls and the wooden beams, are several inscriptions, some of them very old, testifying to the execution of the restoration works.
The two domes and the underlying giant circular colonnade are additions to the original layout of the Villa and date back to the thirties of the XIX century; they were made by the famous Modena-born architect and engineer Luigi Poletti.

Villa Levi panorama

Villa Levi internoVilla Levi cupola

The Park

Immersed in the agricultural landscape of the Reggio Emilia plain, the 4-hectare park extends between via Fratelli Rosselli to the south and the Modolena stream to the west. The area is divided into two zones with rather different characteristics: to the east, on the front of the neoclassical Villa Levi, is a large and well-kept lawn, elliptical in shape, bordered by dense tree-lined wings, while to the west are open spaces with a more natural aspect, rustic lawns and a long mixed hedge running along the bank of the stream. The arboreal heritage is remarkable with a high diversity of species and specimens of really considerable sizes: cedars, ash trees, plane trees, lime trees and various English oaks.

From 1888 the villa hosted Margherita Levi and, for several years, her first husband, baron Alberto Franchetti (1860-1942), from the noble Jewish Sephardic family (his mother's name was Rothschild) and famous composer of operas belonging to the realist school. Raimondo Franchetti (1889-1935), son of Margherita and Alberto, was the last Italian explorer of Africa and died from the explosion of his plane in the skies over Cairo (his hunting trophies and the finds from his journeys, especially in Dancalia, are kept in the Reggio Emilia-based Natural History Museum). Some testimonies tell that the park previously had relatively modest dimensions and was limited to the part in front of the villa, while in the western area was a small lake. The greenery seen today may be thus largely traced back to the early decades of the last century and to the work of Margherita Levi.

Curiosities

The recently discovered tunnel is located in the middle of the long dirt road that connects Villa Levi to Coviolo. In the dark years of the Second World War, the tunnel served as an anti-aircraft shelter: a place to escape to safety and to escape bombing. Villa Levi played a central role in those years: it was occupied by the Germans, used as a barracks and served as a hiding place for the curtain of Alfonso Chierici, who was about to be stolen in Germany. It was the partisan "Gigi" (Pierino Beggi) who in 1944, with a blitz, hid him near his home, in order to keep him under control.

The recently discovered tunnel is located in the middle of the long dirt road that connects Villa Levi to Coviolo. In the gloomy years of World War II, the tunnel served as an anti-aircraft shelter: a place to get to safety and to escape bombing. Villa Levi played a central role in those years: it was occupied by the Germans, used as barracks and served as a hiding place for the curtain of Alfonso Chierici, who was about to be stolen in Germany. It was the partisan "Gigi" (Pierino Beggi) who in 1944, with a blitz, hid it near his home so that he could keep it under control.