VILLA BALBIANO The treasure, the airship and the Hollywood stars!

Описание: Villa Balbiano is located in Ossuccio, a hamlet in the municipality of Tremezzina municipality
It’s one of the oldest villas on Lake Como.
It stands on the ruins of a 16th-century villa destroyed by the fury, of the Perlana torrent.

The Giovio family began the project of villa Balbiano, later completed by Abbot Marco Gallio.
After a couple of centuries, the villa was purchased by Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini, a wealthy patron and man of letters, who transferred his literary salon, a rich library and equally rich art collections to the Balbiano.
To him we owe the further enlargement of the Italian garden, with statues, fountains and new pergolas.
He again had a new villa built, smaller than his residence to accommodate his guests,
on the nearby tip of Lavedo "the Villa del Balbianello," that is, small Balbiano.
He also had built in 1790, near the Perlana stream,
a tower with three bronze bells, a clock, a sundial, and a lighthouse to guide boats. The tower collapsed in the first half of the 19th century.

There is a legend about Cardinal Durini's death in Ossuccio.
On that fateful April 28, 1796, the day of the armistice of Cherasco. The cardinal was preparing to flee from Balbiano to Switzerland to avoid the hated French revolutionaries.
Unfortunately, however, he wanted to overstuff his clothes with all his gold.
That enormous weight gave him a hernia that killed him instantly. Durini's treasure, which was to be immediately buried in the villa, was searched for decades by the new owners and local residents, but still has not been found.
Durini's death was followed by a period of neglect, then the villa was bought in 1872 by a German industrialist family, the Gessners.
In Balbiano they had the two buildings enlarged with a billiard room and dance hall and planted a spinning mill called, the "Filandone," because of its large size, complete with a smokestack, which was later destroyed in the second half of the 1930s.

On September 15, 1914, a curious event happened. An airship bound for Como with the designer on board, Celestino Usuelli, after going up the Lecco branch bypassing the tip of Bellagio, at the height of Lézzeno was hit by a gust of wind.
The nacelle entered the water on the bias, unable to take off again.
Thanks to some motorboats, the airship was towed to Campo, where it was repaired to leave again the next day for Milan.

Today the villa is privately owned and hosts exclusive events and dream weddings.
It was also used as a location for recent Ridley Scott film "House of Gucci" starring Lady Gaga Al pacino and Jared Leto.