Desenzano del Garda

In the area surrounding our appartments, you can visit the VillaRomana of Desenzano, is one of the best-preserved late antique villas on Lake Garda. It was built between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD and remained in use at least the 5th century AD. The structure had direct access to the lake and is spread over 4 sectors: A, B, C and D. The most beautiful sector is sector A, which is the representative sector.
We do not know who the mansion belonged to: it is assumed that the owner might have been a certain de Centius, from whom "decenziano" would derive and from whom Desenzano would in turn derive, but this is only a hypothesis.
The Villa in question is certainly one of the villas that has better preserved its mosaic floor compared to other villas such as those in Sirmione or Toscolano Maderno, dated to the same period. The remains were discovered around 1920-1930, when construction was underway in the area and coincidentally historical finds came to the surface.
From that moment, excavation campaigns then began from that time and continued from the 1930s until the 1980s, when the archaeological site became usable.
The Villa of Desenzano presents all those rooms typical of the typical suburban villa of the first century AD: the entrance, the peristilium, which was an inner courtyard, i.e., a small room that provided access to the triclinium, the triclinium itself, which was the dining room all entirely decorated with polychrome mosaics, a small viridarium, i.e., a private internal garden that was probably reserved for the lord and his family, in addition to bedrooms.
Interestingly, also in Desenzano there is evidence of the "hypocaust" technique, which ensured the underfloor heating of the rooms, visible both in the representative sector A and in the later sectors, especially in sector D, which is a thermal sector. It is assumed, in fact, that those who lived in the villa had hot, cold and lukewarm water, called their own thermal environment, which was used for refreshment, well-being and hygienic body care.
In fact, the term spa is not to be understood as we understand it today, that is, as a place of spa and wellness, but should be considered as a place of personal hygiene and cleansing. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the lake at that time came close to the Villa, and it is thought that the water used was lake water.
Another interesting aspect of the archaeological site is the presence of an Antiquarium, i.e., a small museum inside the Villa that allows visitors to admire all those remains that were found there, including statues that probably decorated the peristilium and a small glass cup depicting a character with a beard, stars and a rooster, dating back to the 4th century AD. This depiction suggests that Christianity, as the villa remained standing until the 5th century AD, had also arrived on Lake Garda’s shores.
The villa was then abandoned in the 5th century, the period of the barbarian invasions.

On Lake Garda in Desenzano, the Castle was placed in the upper part of the city with the strictly defensive function. Inside, in fact, lived not kings, queens, princes and princesses, but the inhabitants of Desenzano, who could find refuge and shelter in case of enemy invasions. For this reason it was called a "ricetto" castle. 
It was built around the 13th century, probably on top of a Roman castrum, that is, on ancient remains of Roman settlements, a proposal, however, only hypothesised.
The keep is definitely the highest lookout point that served to control the territory 360 degrees. Nowadays it is one of the most beautiful viewpoints of Lake Garda. The patrol walkway was also built with the aim of controlling the territory. Originally, there must have been a hundred cottages inside the castle that served the inhabitants of Desenzano to find shelter in case of danger. In fact, when necessary, the drawbridge was pulled up to protect those within its perimeter who had sought refuge. Inside was the small church of Sant'Ambrogio, which later, with the arrival of Napoleon in the late 1700s, was deconsecrated and turned into a military depot. The castle also houses the large Beretta Barracks, built around the 1800s as the headquarters of the Alpine troops and bersaglieri, and which was later used as a freight depot in recent times. 
In the years 2006-2007, the castle was restored with funds from the European Community, which made it possible to redevelop a large part of the structure, restoring the rooms and making it visitable and usable for the entire city.

Piazza Malvezzi is Desenzano's historic square on Lake Garda and one of the city's main squares. It was reorganized and built around the 1500s to a design by the brescian architect Giulio Todeschini, who was called to Desenzano to redevelop the square with a number of buildings that were to characterise the new town layout.
In Desenzano, we know there was the largest market on Lake Garda. Nowadays, the Tuesday market still recalls the market day of years past and reminds us that Desenzano has always been one of the main centrers for sorting products and goods from the lake.
For this reason, the present palace named after him, i.e., the "Palazzo Todeschini," which today houses the Bosio information office and civic gallery, was built and designed by Todeschini. At that time, it was called "Il Granarolo," that is, the large warehouse of the city of Desenzano, inside which all those materials and products that came from the lake were stored. In fact, these large barges arrived in Porto, unloading products such as grain, paper, timber, iron... all those products that were later stored inside il Granarolo to be resold on market day. The name "Granarolo," you may have guessed, derives from wheat, one of the most traded products in Desenzano.
The whole structure of the square was in function of the market: the porticoes framing Piazza Malvezzi, in fact, had the function of accommodating the stalls of the market and guaranteeing trading even in bad weather. That is why all around the perimeter of Piazza Malvezzi are the arcades, which are precisely the frame of the square itself.
Further enriching the space is the “palazzo del Provveditore" which features the same construction material as the Todeschini palace, namely the large white stone of Malcesine. Il palazzo del Provveditore, also designed by Giulio Todeschini, was precisely the seat of the provveditore during the Venetian rule of Desenzano. However, the provveditore would never reside in the city but would move from the beginning to Salò, on the Zanardelli lakefront. The palace in Desenzano will therefore not be finished: only the first two arches containing two masks have been finished, one of male appearance with a beard and bunches of grapes near the ears that should represent the god of wine Bacchus, and on the other side one of female appearance that should represent Demeter, the goddess of agriculture.
Another monument that is an integral part of Piazza Malvezzi the statue of Saint Angela Merici, patron saint of Desenzano. Angela was born in Desenzano probably in Via Castello, where there is a plaque commemorating her. She then moved to the Grezze area, where she had her vocation. She later moved to Salò and finally to Brescia, where she spent the rest of her life.
It was in Brescia that in the first half of the 1500s she founded the order of Ursuline schools, establishing the first written rule in the vernacular by a woman. Angela Merici is that Saint who enables young women to pursue careers other than marriage or religious services. She allows women to be able to be active in the community as laywomen or to take vows without necessarily entering a convent.
Saint Angela died in Brescia and was buried there, in the Church that would later be named after her and where the Saint's body is still present, attracting many worshippers and tourists every year.
In the past, barges used to arrive in the Porto Vecchio as far as the square.
Nowadays there is a bridge called "alla Veneziana", which was built under the fascist period in the 1930's, however, has it has nothing to do with Venetian style.

At Lake Garda in Desenzano, the Cathedral of Saint Maria Maddalena was built over an earlier church. The project is also by architect Giulio Todeschini, again with a view to that redevelopment that also characterised Piazza Malvezzi. 
The foundation stone was laid in 1586 and the Church was consecrated a few years later, in 1611. The interior of the cathedral holds works by artists of particular value, dating mainly from the Venetian era: first among them Gian Battista Tiepolo, a Venetian painter born in the late 1600s and considered one of the greatest painters of the Venetian 18th century. Tiepolo is remembered because in the chapel of the Blessed Sacramenthe he painted the famous "Last Supper." 
The painting depicts a Last Supper with a particular perspective, different from what we are used to thinking of: the view of the work, in fact, is not frontal but diagonal, probably due to the limited space Tiepolo had in painting the canvas.
Another great artist featured in the Duomo is Andrea Celesti, a Venetian artist who worked from the second half of the 17th century and created the "Resurrection of the Dead" and a beautiful cycle of works dedicated to Santa Maria Maddalena for Desenzano. Inside the church is another noteworthy area, namely the Chapel of Saint Angela Merici, which is located on the left as soon as you enter the building. It was built around the end of the 19th century and is one of the most beautiful examples of the Art Nouveau style. At the entrance to the chapel there are six small paintings that tell the life of the Saint, the work of the artist Calcinardi.

The archaeological museum G. Rambotti is the historical museum of the town of Desenzano del Lago Garda.
It is located and housed in the former Carmelite convent. Immediately next to the convent is the former Church of Santa Maria de Senioribus, now deconsecrated and renamed "Teatro Alberti", but which during the 15th century or so was the church occupied by the Carmelite order.
As mentioned, the archaeological museum is located where the convent was located at the time, specifically within those areas that were once used for the canteen and dormitory. The archaeological museum houses a number of finds from the prehistoric era, mainly from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The museum was opened to the public around the 1990s, and among the various spaces, it is possible to immerse oneself in a series of pile-dwelling remains, mostly from the Cataragna and Peschiera areas, in an area of the museum dedicated to activities that took place in the past such as textile activities or the activity of ceramic decoration.
An important mention should also be made of the large Lavagnone plough, the oldest plough in the world, dating back to the early Bronze Age (2000 BC) and found in the Lavagnone area around the 1970s. The historical richness of this area caught the attention of UNESCO, which declared it a World Heritage Site in 2011.