The Villa Sormani was the site chosen by Count Paolo Andreani to demonstrate the first public balloon flight on Italian soil in 1784.

[1] The villa was built in 1733 for Count Charles Joseph Bolagnos by the Milanese architect Giovanni Ruggeri [it] who worked in the Baroque style.

[1] In 1784 the villa was owned by Gian Mario Andreani whose younger brother had an interest in balloons following the first flight in France in 1783.

[1] Paolo Andreani had seen a model balloon built by Agostino Gerli [it] and his brothers ascend a few feet powered by hot air.

[5] Andreani undertook to fund the Gerli brothers to build a much larger hot-air balloon with a diameter of 23 m (75 ft) that would be capable of allowing a man to take to the air.