The Marquise's home
As soon as you go through the front door, you are under the spell of its decorative elements, furniture and objects of art, which are so different from each other and chronologically remote from the period when the fortress was built.
The type of a house-museum and the Raimondi-Gambarotta art collection
a unicum immersed in the heart of the Parma Apennines
_a woman to tell about
Compiano Castle was bought by Lina Angela Luisa Comtess Raimondi Marquise Gambarotta, who turned it into her permanent address in 1962, by transforming the noble floor in particular, once Princes Landi's residence.
She was born in Tortona (AL) in 1903 and she was Count Giuseppe Raimondi and Emilia Azzale Cervini's daughter; she lived the Belle Epoque Period and she was in contact with famous people such as the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio and the artist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
She lived in Argentina for some years, married Marquis Piero Gambarotta (the owner of the famous company manufacturing the homonymous bitter). She dealt with real estate properties, architecture and interior design for years. A union between profession and passion that prompted her to travel all around the world, increasing her family art collection and antiques.
Widowed at a young age, no children and dog lover, in the sixties she came back to Italy to spend her last twenty years of life in the small village of Compiano where she brought her noble elegance and love for beauty.
There she died in 1987 and still today she rests inside the Chapel of the Castle-House-Museum, after she had appointed the Municipal Administration of Compiano heir of her rich heritage.
_an art collection to be admired
After the renovation and restoration works, the "Marchesa" devoted herself to transforming the rooms of the noble floor of the Castle, once Princes Landi's residence, by furnishing them tastefully and endowing each of them with a distinct eclectic flavour.
The varied characterization of the rooms, which span periods ranging from the Renaissance to the Rococò, from the Middle Ages to the Empire Style, fits, perfectly, into the climate of the early twentieth century collecting.
Her collection, born and implemented over the years, after her work experiences and numerous trips, reflects the cultured and at the same time bizarre personality of the owner.
The idea of an intimate and reserved environment such as the Library, with its wooden boiseries reminds the humanistic princes' study (studiolo); the Chinese Room with its figurines of Buddha, teapots and vases as well as some pieces of furniture of great value such as the small Temple and the Chinese Screen, traces the interest of lots of collectors, at the turn of XIX and XX centuries for the exotic and the current fashion for oriental art; the Music Hall, distinguished by a French Sievers, a passage between a fortepiano and a rosewood piano, testifies the high cultural level of the "Marchesa", whereas her bed-room, with mirrors that conceal a wardrobe and an Empire-Style bathroom,with some wig holders and a helmet for hair-styling, reminds us a current cutesy vanitas.
During the opening times, our guides will take our visitors to discover all the rooms and they will reveal some anecdotes and curiosities also about the photos, the books and the objects of the last owner of the Castle. The tour is obligatorily guided and it takes an hour about!
_ A house-museum for everybody!
_ An exclusive guided tour
_ At dinner with the Marchesa
