Skip to content

Then and now · Torno

Villa Pliniana from the lake

Villa Pliniana stands on the shore at Torno, at the foot of a wooded slope: it was built from 1573 for Count Giovanni Anguissola, beside the intermittent spring described by Pliny. The lithograph, signed by Louis Cherbuin, dates from 1840 and was made from a daguerreotype; the photograph, taken from the lake, dates from 2021.

Drag the line between the two pictures, or use the arrow keys, to move from one to the other.

Villa Pliniana from the lake in the evening, with its windows lit and the central loggia lit up; to the right, lower buildings and a path climbing into the woods.
An 1840 lithograph: Villa Pliniana on the shore, its front with several rows of windows, a long wall on the water to the right and tall cypresses behind the roof, at the foot of a wooded slope.
1840 · Lithograph by Louis Cherbuin after a daguerreotypeRijksmuseum · CC02021 · PhotographRothschild editor · CC BY-SA 4.0

What the two pictures show

The front is the same, with its rows of windows and the loggia in the middle, and the slope behind is wooded in both pictures. To the right of the villa the photograph shows lower buildings and a path climbing the slope; on that stretch the lithograph has only a long wall on the water. In the lithograph tall cypresses rise behind the roof; they cannot be seen in the photograph.