Known chiefly as the home of Luchino Visconti, Villa Erba was designed at the end of the nineteenth century, with a Mannerist inspiration, which gives a dramatic impression of opulence. It is divided into a group of porter’s lodges, the manor-house, servant’s quarters and guest-rooms, conservatory, dock and stables. The villa comprises a square central section, with broad stairways sloping down towards the lake, an entrance portico and a panoramic turret which joins the noble section to the servants’ wing, which is a building characterised by an architectural form quite distinct from the main building.

Each room of the two-storey building is luxuriously decorated with the works of Angelo Lorenzoli who, assisted by Ernesto Fontana in carrying out the frescoes, devised and coordinated the ensemble of multicoloured friezes, stuccos, gilt decorations, coloured ceramic floors and luxurious woods. He incorporated the distinctive furnishings into the architecture of the building, and reused antique works of art in preparing the walls and ceilings. The figurative frescoes are by the painter Ernesto Fontana. The chandeliers and lighting in many rooms are of outstanding quality, as is much of the furniture, including the double series of seventeenth-century choir-stalls in the library hall. Also noteworthy is the precious finishing in “Cordovan Leather”, finely worked and surmounted by a crowning decoration of cherubs, painted in oil on canvas (of eighteenth-century origin taken from another residence) which characterises the so-called Japanese or tea parlour.

Also of great artistic value are the numerous paintings incorporated into the decorations of the walls and ceilings, including the famous Strappos (stripped off) frescoes in the banqueting hall, attributed to Johann Christoph Storer who worked in Lombardy in the 1600s, and the decorations by Angiolo D’Andrea, a well-known painter of the Milanese Belle Époque. The two large portraits of the first owners of the villa, Luigi Erba and Anna Brivio, both by Cesare Tallone, are among the most well-preserved works, and are situated at the foot of the grand staircase leading up to the first floor.

The rooms on the first floor, though featuring a more domestic and less imposing style than the opulence of the ground floor, are also characterised by refined wall, floor and ceiling decorations, among which mention must be made of the eighteenth-century circular oil painting of the Madonna, incorporated into the brushwork of the wall.

The uncovered external areas in the immediate vicinity of the villa are strewn with works of a mythological and historical nature by the sculptor Mazzuchelli, such as the two lions placed on either side of the carriage entrance on the western side, towards the garden.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that, over the years, the villa has undergone continuous modifications, which have enabled the accumulation and stratification of various works of outstanding figurative sensitivity and which displays the eclectic taste characteristic of this period's artistic style.

In particular, between 1920 and 1930, a number of variations were made in the distribution of the areas and the rooms: new glass display cases were inserted into the thickness of the walls and a coffered ceiling decorated with valuable Neo-Renaissance paintings was installed.

The spacious halls on the ground floor are currently available for organising galas, banquets, concerts and exclusive events, while the halls on the first floor, accessed by a wide marble staircase, today house the offices of the company which administers the international exhibition and conference centre.