In the heart of Albese con Cassano, Villa Parravicini di Persia hides seventeenth-century coffered ceilings and a frescoed family chapel: a small treasure trove of art that few would expect to find in a village in the Como highlands.
The earliest records of the villa date back to 1560, and its oldest core corresponds to the north courtyard, facing the garden. This is where its finest spaces are found: on the first floor, large halls now used for worship and community gatherings, and on the second floor, coffered ceilings and seventeenth-century frescoes that testify to the skill of the Como painters of the period, called upon to decorate the residences of the area’s noble families.
Inside the garden stands the Oratory of Santa Elisabetta, an elegant Baroque chapel conceived as the family’s private place of worship, with stuccoes and frescoes of notable quality worth a stop even just to peer through the railings. The name of the Parravicini family, whose coat of arms depicts a swan, still recurs today on several historic buildings in the village: a small detail to look for anyone who enjoys spotting traces of the past hidden along the streets of the centre.