A small oriental pavilion above the lake. This watercolour captures the Moorish Pavilion at Villa Melzi d'Eril, Bellagio, looking across its sheltered terrace towards the blue water and the rooftops of Bellagio.
 
Villa Melzi was built between 1808 and 1810 for Francesco Melzi d'Eril, Duke of Lodi, Vice-President of Napoleon's Italian Republic and later Chancellor of the Kingdom of Italy. Designed by Giocondo Albertolli, the villa formed part of a neoclassical ensemble including a chapel, orangery, and formal gardens. The gardens were created by architect Luigi Canonica and agronomist Luigi Villoresi, the same team responsible for the Royal Villa at Monza.
 
The Moorish Pavilion, sometimes called a kiosk, was placed near the water as a viewpoint and former coffee house, offering one of the estate's most picturesque positions. Nearby stands the monument to Dante and Beatrice by Giovanni Comolli, while the pavilion itself preserves busts of Ferdinand I of Austria and Maria Anna of Savoy. The villa and gardens became a celebrated destination for European aristocracy, writers, and musicians in the 19th century.
 
Interesting facts...
The pavilion is not genuinely Moorish but a 19th-century European fantasy of the Islamic world an exotic architectural fashion popular among aristocrats who had never travelled to the Middle East.
It was originally used as a coffee house, making it one of Lake Como's most amazing places to take a break. The busts of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria and Maria Anna of Savoy inside the pavilion are unusual because the Melzi family were closely associated with Napoleon, yet later generations preserved memorials to the Habsburg and Savoy rulers.
Franz Liszt stayed at Villa Melzi with Marie d'Agoult in 1837 also amazing is their daughter Cosima  later married Richard Wagner.
Liszt is said to have been inspired by the Dante and Beatrice monument near the pavilion when composing his Dante Sonata. Stendhal praised the gardens and mentioned Villa Melzi in his novel The Charterhouse of Parma.
Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley are also recorded among the estate's historic visitors. The gardens were deliberately designed to make a relatively small site seem larger, using winding paths, hidden corners, artificial hills, and carefully framed views. The estate contains an Egyptian temple, an artificial grotto, a Japanese-style water-lily lake, and a museum of Napoleonic memorabilia.
The Melzi family's descendants, the Gallarati Scotti family, still own the property and opened the gardens to the public in the 1970s. The pavilion's reflection in the lake on calm days has made it one of Bellagio's most photographed views.
 
Location: Lungolario Europa 7, Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy