Villa Regina Margherita, Bordighera
Queen Margherita of Italy had Luigi Broggi build her a winter villa at Bordighera in 1914 — an eighteenth-century Baroque in modern dress, where the first queen of Italy spent her last years.
At a glance
Villa Regina Margherita is the winter residence built for Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of Italy, on the Riviera dei Fiori. The architect Luigi Broggi designed it between 1914 and 1915 in a Baroque-revival manner, with gardens by the landscape designer Ludwig Winter; it was inaugurated in 1916. The queen lived here until her death in 1926, and it is now a museum of the Terruzzi Foundation.
Key facts
- Built: 1914–1915, inaugurated 1916
- Architect: Luigi Broggi
- For: Queen Margherita of Savoy
- Style: eighteenth-century Baroque revival; gardens by Ludwig Winter
- Today: a museum of the Fondazione Terruzzi (since 2011)
History
Bordighera had been a favourite winter resort of northern Europeans since the mid-nineteenth century, and Queen Margherita knew it well. In 1914 she bought the grounds of an earlier villa and commissioned Luigi Broggi — an architect of the Boito school — to build her a new residence within the park.
Work began in March 1914 and finished late in 1915; the villa was inaugurated on 25 February 1916, in a Baroque-revival style with every modern comfort, including a lift. Its gardens were laid out by the Prussian landscape designer Ludwig Winter. The queen spent several months a year here until she died in Bordighera in January 1926.
After a long decline the villa was restored by the Terruzzi family foundation and reopened in 2011 as a museum, housing part of the Terruzzi art collection.
What you see
A symmetrical Baroque-revival villa of three storeys with a rooftop terrace, set in a large park above Bordighera, looking out to the sea. The interiors keep their early-twentieth-century decoration.
The villa is a museum; the building and gardens are visited together.
Practical information
- A museum (Fondazione Terruzzi); check opening days
- The villa, its decoration and the park are the visit
- Above Bordighera, on the Via Romana
- Allow 1–2 hours
Getting there
Bordighera is on the Genoa–Ventimiglia railway near the French border; the villa is in the upper town, on the Via Romana. By car, leave the A10 at Bordighera.
Nearby
- The old town of Bordighera Alta
- The Winter Garden and Moreno gardens
- Sanremo and the Riviera dei Fiori
Sources
- Ministero della Cultura / cultura.gov.it
- Fondazione Terruzzi — Villa Regina Margherita
- FAI — Villa della Regina Margherita
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