Villa Cernigliaro

Franco Antonicelli historic residence today dedicated to contemporary art, a museum to visit and live in a b&b immersed in the green hills of Biella.

The villa was built in the 1880s according to the project of the architect Antonio Vandone on commission of the Vercellone family. The property was later purchased by the Turin notary Annibale Germano, and then passed in 1945 to the Sicilian notary Carmelo Cernigliaro. Currently the historic residence is owned by his daughter Carlotta Cernigliaro by inheritance and purchase from the sisters.

The building was architecturally revisited in the 1920s by the architect Giovanni Chevalley. The architect Mario Passanti, on the other hand, took care of the orangery pavilion, while the De Bois brothers designed the gardens.

During the Fascist period, thanks to Franco Antonicelli, husband of Renata Germano, daughter of the notary, the villa was a meeting place for dissident intellectuals and politicians such as Natalia Ginzburg, Norberto Bobbio, Cesare Pavese, Luigi Einaudi, Benedetto Croce, Luigi Pirandello, Eugenio Montale and others.

Map: Villa Cernigliaro