Escursioni nelle Dolomiti - Bolzano

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The locals just catch a glimpse of the façade and the
pretty park, part of which is open to the public.
Built according to the plans of the architect Ferdinando
Folati, it was originally conceived as a ‘Royal
Villa’. The building has a chequered history: to make
way for it, Villa Wendtlandt had to be demolished, a
beautiful building belonging to a German family from
Hamburg. In accordance with the ideology of the fascist
regime, this villa was sacrificed in order to render
the formerly Austrian town more ‘Italian’. The regime
had already erected monumental new buildings
around the ‘Victory Monument’. It was now the turn of
Italy’s royal family, the House of Savoy, to have a residence
worthy of its name. Prince Filiberto Ludovico
Massimiliano, Duke of Pistoia, son of King Vittorio
Emanuele III’s lieutenant-general, Tommaso, Duke of
Genova and his wife, Princess Isabella-Luisa of Bavaria,
was designated the representative in Bolzano
of the royal family.
No expense was spared in the construction of the
building itself and its furnishing: 800 cubic metres of
Roman travertine stone, the interior a triumph of the
24 bm Nr. 2•2013