Con Gadda, tra ville venustissime e villini pastrufaziani

In his literary works Gadda often deals with the topic of the villa, both in relation to his personal life and as a social and architectural phenomena. Villas, or better single family homes, are historically a diffused form of settlement in Brianza: the region north of Milan where is located also the country house built by Gadda???s father, Ippolito Francesco, at the beginning of the XXth century. Over the centuries this region has undergone great changes passing from the traditional setting for aristocratic and magnificent villas of the 17th and 18th centuries that Gadda admires, to the new country homes of a wealthy middle class that Gadda mocks for their marked individualism and whimsical stylistic taste. The essay takes into account these two "categories" as observed by the writer, but also discusses them with reference to the their cultural and architectural context and to the real-world examples that can be extrapolated from the texts.