“Art walks side by side with nature,” at Villa Carlotta, a 17th-century villa surrounded by a large botanical garden, located on the shores of northern Italy’s Lake Como. Facing the Bellagio peninsula in Tremezzo, Villa Carlotta was built for the Milanese marquis Giorgio Clerici in 1690 and extends over 17 acres.

In 1801, the last descendant of that noble Milanese family sold the villa to the wealthy Giovanni Battista Sommariva, an Italian politician of the Cisalpine Republic and a passionate art collector. Sommariva purchased some iconic works of art, such as The Last Kiss of Romeo and Juliet, painted by Francesco Hayez in 1823, inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy, and the original plaster model of the Muse Terpsichore, a masterpiece by Antonio Canova.