Villa Castelbarco, Vaprio d'Adda

Originally, the site hosted a Vallombrosan monastery, with sustaining farms and a chapel to St Carpoforo. The general layout seems to reflect the cloisters of the former monastery. In a 19th-century description, it was called Villa Monasterolo.[1]

These were repurposed by Count Giuseppe Simonetta (died 1733) with construction of a lodge. The monastic church was formulated as a family chapel, refurbished in Baroque style with a polychrome marble altar. The villa was transferred from the Simonetta to the Castelbarco family by the late 18th-century, when Francesca Simonetta married Count Cesare Castelbarco. This count pursued renovation of the buildings and surrounding area, which had been used as a hunting lodge in the past.

In 1804, he expanded and decorated reception rooms, doubled the size of the south wing with the construction of a limonaia or orangery. On the esplanade next to the terrace, he built two Empire-style palazzini used as museum and theater. The park with enhanced with benches and statuary.

Between 1835 and 1837, Cesare's nephew, Carlo Castelbarco created in the basement a series of rooms with individual themes: Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman, Oceanic, and finely a room with a Renaissance or Raphaelesque theme. The rooms, often cave-like, were furnished with fountains with playful water jets and waterfalls. A guide from 1907 depicts in situ a Northern Italian sculpture collected by Carlo,[2] now in the Cloisters collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[3]

At the end of the nineteenth century, the villa passed to the Massimini family, then the Quintavalle in the early twentieth century, which occupied it until the mid-1960s. Currently the property is owned by a private company called "Barco art and culture center". It is used for cultural events and private functions.[4]