House of the Podestà is a house-museum located in Lonato del Garda, within a monumental complex dominated by the Venetian-Visconti fortress.
It was built in the mid-1400s as the seat of the local government representative of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
In 1797, during the Italian Campaign, Napoleon’s French army invaded the territory of the Republic of Venice, occupying the entire mainland. With the defeat of Venice and the subsequent Treaty of Campo Formio, the entire Veneto region passed to the Austrians, and the House of the Podestà in Lonato became a barracks.
At the end of Austro-Hungarian rule, the Brescia area passed to the Kingdom of Sardinia, resulting in the House being ceded to the Municipality of Lonato, which completely abandoned the building.
In 1906, it was purchased at a public auction by Senator Ugo Da Como of Brescia, who had it completely restored, transforming it into a refined, bourgeois residence.
Inside the building are rooms richly decorated, with bas-reliefs, frescoes, furniture, and numerous sculptures.
The heart of the residence, however, is the library, which houses over 52,000 books, including manuscripts and illuminated manuscripts. The library of the House of the Podestà is one of the most important private collections in northern Italy.
Near the House of the Podestà is a tree-lined avenue that leads to the Visconti-Venetian fortress, built on the hill overlooking Lonato and the entire southern basin of Lake Garda.
