Visconti Park

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".

[5] 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,[6] 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[7]».

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.

Although barely hinted, a man with a spear accompanied by a dog, hunting presumably a deer and a wild boar, is visible to the left of the Charterhouse dome.

During the restoration of the buildings in the Park undertaken by Filippo Maria Visconti in 1438, the Great Garden Bathroom is mentioned; the measurements of the plant (which was a real indoor swimming pool), but also the connection with the large fish pond of the same garden, coincide with the famous description by Stefano Breventano (1570), when, with the destruction already occurred at the time of the fall of Ludovico Sforza, there was nothing but the square-shaped basin of 18 steps (equal to about 25 meters on each side), with white marble cladding, once enclosed by larch boards, with four large windows and a roof in the shape of a pavilion.

The Torretta complex, consisting of several residential units and cottages, represents an extraordinary prototype of the "villa of delight", linked to the Visconti rediscovery of the humanistic ideal of the countryside.

The Torretta construction site began around 1384, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti acquired a mill and other existing assets near the tower from the Astolfi (an aristocratic family from Pavia) and we have news of new interventions between 1388 and 1389.

[14] In 1325 the rich Fiamberti family from Pavia acquired numerous assets and funds in the area and, between 1325 and 1341, had the primitive castle built, with a tower and shelter.

In the 1360s, Galeazzo II Visconti bought half of the castle from the Fiamberti family, with the relevant funds, while the remaining part of the complex was expropriated by the lord.

[16] Filippo Maria Visconti established the position of captain of the Park, in charge of the custody and management of the ducal assets and placed his seat in the castle.

In 1472 Galeazzo Maria Sforza had the building renovated and enlarged, which was used several times by the dukes as a seat of political representation, on the occasion of hunts and banquets organized within the park.

In San Genesio there was, at least since 1326, a castle owned by the Sisti family from Pavia, which was expropriated by Galeazzo II and demolished to enlarge the park.

Much more limited must have been the works in defense of the Torre del Gallo, sold by the Astolfi to Bianca of Savoy in 1388: a tower; it was therefore in this case a simple fortified farm.

The Torretta
The breaching of the walls of the Visconti Park is a recurrent theme in the iconography of the Battle of Pavia (unknown Flemish artist, 16th century)
One of the surviving gates of the park in Torre del Mangano near the Charterhouse .