Once the home of one of La Scala’s most celebrated ballerinas, this nineteenth-century villa in Carate Urio still carries in its name the passage from the theatre to the Lario aristocracy.
The villa was purchased around the middle of the nineteenth century by Sofia Brambilla, prima ballerina of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, known throughout Europe under her stage name “Sofia Fuoco”: hence the name by which the building is still remembered by local residents today, Villa Fuoco. Having concluded her brilliant career on Europe’s stages at just thirty-five, the ballerina chose this lakefront home to spend the rest of her life, until her death in 1916, mourned by the whole village for her generosity.
In the following decades the property passed to the counts Viganotti Giusti and finally to the Baragiola family, from which comes the name by which it is now more widely known: Villa Baragiola-Carcano. The villa is part of the stretch of coast between Moltrasio and Carate Urio that the boats of the Navigazione del Lago di Como cross on the classic tour of the lake’s first basin, a route that touches some of the most fascinating residences on the western shore of the Lario, from the Castello di Urio to the small harbour of Carate.
Today the villa remains a private residence, but its name continues to tell one of the most curious and least known stories in the heritage of historic villas on Lake Como: that of an artist of European fame who chose the quiet of the lake as her final refuge after a life of applause.