LOCATION
Via Venti Settembre:
inside the history
The Bolzoni & Bobbio Tax Law Firm is located in Via Venti Settembre, A central street of Milan dedicated to the famous historical event known as "the breach of Porta Pia", dating to 1870. It was designed with the Beruto Master Plan, definitively approved in 1889.
Shortly after its opening, the street was divided into small plots of land, intended to house noble villas of the upper-middle class, built between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some of which following the so-called "liberty" style.
But even if many villas dating back to those years remain with all their splendour (and ten years ago one of these was sold to a big pharmaceutical industry for 24 million euros), others were demolished in the second post-war period, to better exploit economically, it is meant the land on which they stood.
So, today in their place we find large buildings.
Among the disappeared villas we remember, in particular, three, listed below.
The Villino of the publisher Hoepli , the great and munificent Swiss bookseller who made his fortune in Milan, built between 1894 and 1896, by the architect Carlo Formenti.
Villino Francetti-Frova.
Carla Francetti has a portrait in the picture gallery of the Maggiore hospital, as a well-known benefactor.
Giuseppe Frova, originally from the Anzasca Valley (Verbania), started as a timber trader who sent the woods of that valley to Milan via the Toce river, the same where the marbles for the construction of the Cathedral also sailed. He then went on to build and lay the sleepers for the railway tracks, becoming an important industrialist in the railway sector, in great development in the second half of the nineteenth century. Despite not having children, he had many brothers and many grandchildren; he can be considered the progenitor of the rich family who built the villa (1896) by the architect Sebastiano Locati, on the corner with via Brennero.
Also owned by the Frova family is the funeral shrine at the Monumental Cemetery, by Luca Beltrami.
Villino Calabresi , dating back to the very last years of the nineteenth century, designed and built by the architect Sebastiano Locati.
Among the disappeared villas one could almost count (seen what it has become today, completely remodelled) the Villetta Caterina of the architect Achille Manfredini, located on the corner with Via Spluga.
We also remember the "almost" surviving Villa of Pasquale Crespi , brother of the best known Cristoforo, founder of the textile empire. The building was designed by the architect Steno Sioli Legnani in 1897. Today, a little remodelled compared to the original neo-Renaissance design, it is less harmonious than it once was.
For images and contents, we thank the kind collaboration of Avv. Mauro Colombo.