"Just like his brothers and sisters, Luchino has always shown great interest in all forms of art, he considers his aristocratic roots almost as a discriminating feature, declaring: “Yes, it is true, I come from a rich family, but my father, although an aristocrat was neither stupid or uncultured. He loved music, the theatre, art […]. I grew up between theatre stages. In Milan, in our house in via Cervia, we had a small theatre, and then there’s La Scala… My mother loved the high life, the great balls, the fashionable parties, but she also loved her children, she loved music, the theatre, […] she made me take cello lessons. We weren’t left to do as we pleased, we weren’t used to living a frivolous, empty life, like many aristocrats …” (in “L'ultimo Visconti” , by Costantino Costantini, Milan 1976).

The bourgeois-aristocratic atmosphere of the villa and its grounds together with the backdrop of the lake landscape is evident, even dominant in the works of Visconti as a director: from the great hotels facing the lake in Bellagio in “Rocco and his brothers”, to the placid lake of Wiessee, scene of the massacre of the Fascist Action Squads and the Night of Long Knives in “The Damned”, passing through the aquatic metaphor of “Ludwig”, Venus’s grotto in Linderhof castle, Lake Starnberg and the Isola delle Rose so dear to the memory of Sissi.

The villas, whether it was Villa Erba or the Visconti Palace in Milan, or the residences on Ischia and in Grazzano, played a central role in Visconti’s cinematographic representations. In “The Leopard” the transfer of power and the end of a dominant caste is well represented by the villa itself, which the director presents with the familiar eye of someone who well knows the world of aristocratic dynasties and their decline, precisely because he was part of one.

Villa Erba was commissioned to be built by Commendatore Luigi Erba and his wife Anna Brivio (Luchino’s maternal grandparents) as a villa in which they could receive and entertain illustrious guests, artists, important figures from the political and industrial worlds.

The balls, parties, lunches, concerts and gatherings in the drawing room are family rituals that the director transfigures in the harmoniously blended frescoes of his films, from the aforementioned “The Leopard” and “The Damned” to “Death in Venice” and “Conversation Piece”, all enriched by famous paintings, antique furniture, rare carpets and sumptuous costumes, elements which were present in the aristocratic and cultured youth of Luchino and in the atmosphere of Villa Erba.