I Giardini Di Villa Melzi d'Eril
In spring 2010, a thorough project began to identify and classify all the camellias planted in the Gardens of Villa Melzi d’Eril over the past 180 years.
There are currently about 250 camellias, growing in various parts of the large estate, but primarily near the two entrances at Loppia and Bellagio. In the latter area, a sizable number of camellias have formed a true woodland, located uphill from the Japanese maple pond to the north.
Many originated from seed and mostly belong to forms of the Camellia japonica species type, but a substantial number are historically and botanically significant varieties dating to the golden age of Italian camellias in the 19th century. Of particular note are rare and splendid Italian varieties such as “Lavinia Maggi” (1858), “Il Tramonto” (ca. 1858), “Roma Risorta” (ca. 1866), “Valtevareda” (1851), “Vergine di Colle Beato” (ca. 1856), “Angela Cocchi” (ca. 1856), and “Ridolfi Striata” (1842).
By the mid-19th century, the Bellagio Garden—already home to a vast botanical collection of trees and shrubs of every kind, including around 230 different varieties of roses—stood out as one of the most forward-looking aristocratic estates for cultivating camellias. It began gathering young potted specimens, including “Pomponia Alba” (developed in China in 1822), “Duchesse d’Orléans” (Milan, 1839), “Preston Eclipse” (England, 1837), “Rosa Mundi” (England, 1827), and several others.
These plants were grown in a greenhouse, awaiting the right moment to be transplanted into open ground in the area reserved exclusively for camellias—“near the Palace toward the north,” according to recent research. At that time, distributed in three groups, there were 41 different camellias rooted there, at least one of which survives in the same spot to this day. It is Camellia japonica “Atrorubens,” a variety native to China that reached the West in 1818. Around 1840, the Melzi d’Eril family purchased a specimen of this plant, which still grows and blooms without issues on the Villa’s northern side, alongside other camellias planted in subsequent eras.
The 19th century was the golden era of the camellia, peaking between the 1820s and 1860s, often with the direct involvement of prominent villa and garden owners—members of the aristocracy—or expert horticulturalists, such as the Mercatelli of Florence and the Rovelli of Pallanza.
Those nobles and powerful figures who owned villas on Lake Como—like the Sachsen-Meiningen in Tremezzo and the Melzi d’Eril in Bellagio—could not resist participating. In many cases, newly developed varieties resulting from lengthy experimentation were dedicated to members of noble families who, in various ways, helped spread this ornamental plant. During the annual “Camellia Day of Lake Como (Lario)” in spring 2011—when the entire country was celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification—Villa Melzi d’Eril chose a theme that reflected its own historical and cultural traditions. It began assembling a collection of mostly 19th-century camellias, dedicated to certain members of the nobility of that era: “Conte Cavour” (1881), “Conte Carlo Annoni” (1888), “Conte Cicogna” (1852), and “Duchessa Melzi d’Eril” (1883).
Opposite the Italian nobility’s camellias, a second collection of historic camellias has reconnected an old bond between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore, rooted in a shared passion for camellias.
Until the mid-19th century, the Rovelli gardening family oversaw the Borromeo gardens on both Isola Bella and Isola Madre. Around 1851, Renato Rovelli and his brothers founded an “Horticultural Establishment” in Pallanza, cultivating thousands of ornamental plants. One of their greatest successes was the creation of new camellias, which were also highly valued by the Melzi d’Eril family. Their main operation was indeed the Pallanza nursery, which, after the family line died out, turned into a woodland overrun by invasive plants. In 2003, a group of experts decided to explore that historic forest, bringing to light the ancient Rovelli specimens. The old camellias were patiently identified, catalogued, and propagated by cuttings. In 2011, Villa Melzi acquired some of those cuttings, which were then planted here, further enriching the already substantial collection of camellias dating back to the mid-19th century. Among these varieties are “Angelo Botti,” “Comte de Gomer,” “Annessione,” and “Sacco Vera.”
In nature, the most common camellia in gardens is Camellia japonica, native to southern China, Taiwan, Korea, and the Japanese islands as far north as Honshū.
It often grows as a small tree that can reach or exceed nine meters in height, with a lush, evergreen canopy made up of glossy, leathery leaves. The flowers have 5–7 dark red petals, at the center of which is a cluster of yellow stamens that frequently develop into thin, colored filaments—known as petaloids—that can become actual petals.
Moreover, the base red color can shift to pink or white, creating variegation or mottling that growers have exploited over the centuries to develop new cultivars with widely different characteristics. This explains the extremely high number of “new” camellias that have spread to gardens worldwide, somewhat overshadowing the original species. In 1845, there were an estimated 700 cultivars of Camellia japonica; today there are at least 20,000, though only a portion of them are available on the market. In this group at the Loppia entrance, you can mainly see Italian varieties developed in the 19th century.
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