Legend has it that this splendid palace was the castle of the Innominato described by Manzoni in "I Promessi Sposi". The heart of the building: Palazzo Vecchio dates back to the end of the 16th century and was built on pre-existing fortifications. Recently restored, the ground floor houses the town hall.
The main floor offers numerous frescoed rooms, making it one of the most successful pages of Lombard baroque. In the reception rooms there are frescoes dedicated to dynastic splendour, particularly in the so-called Throne Room, dated 1675, where the most illustrious members of the Visconti family stand out on high pedestals in the form of painted monochrome statues.
The Sala dell’Innominato once housed the family picture gallery, while the smaller rooms feature fresco decoration only in the upper part, adjacent to the wooden coffered ceilings, with allegorical and mythological scenes.
The staircase, the result of a refined eighteenth-century intervention, is entirely frescoed with scenes dedicated to the deeds of Hercules, with allegorical female figures, and with illusionistic architectural squares, while the ceiling is dominated by the apotheosis of the Visconti dynasty among the divinities of Olympus.
