Visconti Park-Cedar Herald Index

Visconti Park (Parco Visconteo in Italian) was the private park of the Visconti and Sforza families, lords, and dukes of Milan. Located in Lombardy, northern Italy, it extended between the Pavia Castle and the Pavia Charterhouse. It covered an area of about and was encircled by walls about in length. It was founded in 1360 by Galeazzo II Visconti and enlarged by his son Gian Galeazzo. Its decay began in 1525 with the damages inflicted during the Battle of Pavia. Today, the park's area mainly serves agriculture purposes, while some portions are nature reserves.

The original park

Visconti Park was part of the project of the Pavia Castle, built after 1361 by the decision of Galeazzo II Visconti. The idea to reserve a large area north of the castle for the private leisure and hunting of the Visconti family goes back to the same period. About thirty years later, Gian Galeazzo Visconti added a further portion of land (Parco Nuovo, the New Park) to the first part (Parco Vecchio, the Old Park). With this extension, the park reached the Pavia Charterhouse, founded a few years before by the Visconti to host their family mausoleum, covering about .

Visconti Park

The park was encircled by walls and accessible by gates. The total wall length along the park's perimeter was about . Manors, farmsteads, ponds with hydraulic arrangements, and pathways were built inside the park. The Mirabello Castle, the seat of the authority administering the park (Captain of the Park), was erected at its center. In some parts, the vegetation was designed for recreational purposes or to accommodate animal species. Elsewhere, the agricultural activities were similar to the areas external to the park.

Visconti Park

Visconti Park is considered an archetype of modern parks as an area set aside by local authorities and modified with landscape architecture techniques. In its hunting purposes, it compares to the English deer parks. The complex of Visconti Park, the Pavia Castle, and the Certosa di Pavia constitute the first example in Europe of a royal palace connected to an enclosed park with a private chapel and other buildings. The nearest example visible today is the Monza's royal villa and park, realized about four centuries later.

Visconti Park

Flora and fauna

While maintaining vast agricultural spaces, the park was characterized by the presence of large wooded areas, planting according to a precise landscape project: they were in fact placed along the edges, leaving the central body free, crossed by the Vernavola valley (in turn delineated only one band of alders), so that the visitors' gaze could wander and perceive the grandeur of the park. Even the woods were carefully studied, they were in fact characterized by the presence of a main essence for each tree mass, thus obtaining the "oak forest", "chestnut" and "elm". The park was home to a very rich fauna: in the Sforza age the number of deer, fallow deer and roe deer exceeded 5,000 units, but there were also many hares, pheasants, partridges and quail. There were also bears (mainly placed in a menagerie called "orsaia") and ostriches. We also know that during the summer, to prevent animals from damaging the crops, fences and delimited areas were set up where they were housed.

Reputation abroad and symbolic value

The fame of the park was widespread throughout Europe, Geoffrey Chaucer, who perhaps had the opportunity to visit it during his stay at the Visconti court in 1378, probably referred to it by describing the garden of the nobleman in the Canterbury tales Cavaliere Pavese January: «so beautiful that I don't know another equal in any place». Surely for Galeazzo II, and even more so for Gian Galeazzo, the park also had a strong symbolic value: the ancient royal palace of Pavia, seat of the Lombard kings and those of the kingdom of Italy, had a large garden (viridarium), with the creation of the large park, the Viscontis therefore intended to reconnect with that past, manifesting their royal aspirations. In fact, the park was not intended only for entertainment, hunts and tournaments (one of the most memorable was organized by Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1471) of the lords, but was used by the Visconti and Sforza as a place of representation, here sovereigns, prelates were brought , ambassadors and all the most important guests, who observing the abundant game, the exotic animals, the beauty of the buildings and the grandeur of the Carthusian complex, thus had the opportunity to touch the grandeur of the dukes of Milan.