· 6 min read · by Salimar Boat Tour
Villa Usuelli, Marie Taglioni's villa in Blevio
Passing Blevio you notice a tower rising from the greenery, beside the 18th-century church of Santi Gordiano ed Epimaco. This is Villa Usuelli, which over time has had many names: Villa Maria, Villa Taglioni, la Florida and, before all of them, Ca' dell'Imperatore — the Emperor's House. Each name tells a piece of its story.
Why the Emperor's House
On 22 June 1769 Emperor Joseph II of Austria and his retinue were caught on the lake by a violent storm and took shelter in the building that then stood here. That episode gave the house the name the village used for generations.
Marie Taglioni, forty years in Blevio
In 1840 Marie Taglioni (1804-1884) settled here — the first great ballerina of the Romantic era, the woman who made dancing on pointe famous. She chose Blevio because her friend Giuditta Pasta, the great soprano, already lived there. The neoclassical villa we see today grew out of the rebuilding of that older house.
Beside it stands Villa Maria Serena, with a lake-facing balcony that opens the salons directly onto the water. The two villas are separated by a small historic harbour decorated with terracotta statues and share a single garden.
The garden with caged animals
On Taglioni's death the property passed to her daughter and then to the painter Michele Riccardi, owner of Gallinara island in the Ligurian Sea, who turned the park into a botanical and zoological garden with plants from around the world and caged wild animals. The empty cages, it is said, are still visible in the park.
It then passed to Teresio Usuelli, son of Celestino Usuelli — mountaineer, airship pioneer and friend of Gabriele D'Annunzio — and of a mother from the Borsalino hat family. Hence the present name.
What it is today
- Two connected historic villas: Villa Maria Taglioni with 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, and Villa Maria Serena
- A botanical park of about three hectares with century-old trees, a giant plane tree and a cedar of Lebanon
- Private docks, a large pool and long lakeside terraces
- A large underground space with covered parking for twenty cars, linking the two villas
- Geothermal heating and cooling, period furnishings and original artworks
It is private property, rented for exclusive stays with chef and full staff. Reportedly up to 150,000 euros for a weekend — but no official source publishes that figure, so treat it as hearsay.
How to see it
From the road you barely glimpse it: the access lane is famously narrow. From the lake you recognise it at once by the tower. It stands on the same shore as Villa Troubetzkoy, a few hundred metres further along.
Curiosity: Marie Taglioni's three graves
The ballerina also owned the Ca' d'Oro, the Gothic palace on Venice's Grand Canal. And she has three burials attributed to her: an original one in Marseille, the true tomb at Pere-Lachaise in Paris, and a much-visited stone in Montmartre where dancers still leave ballet shoes — which in fact belongs to her mother, Sophie Karsten.
