Description
The Cascina Boscaiola is one of the few traces left of country Milan, between Viale Jenner and Via Edoardo Porro. Behind its farmhouse look hides a noble fifteenth-century residence, born as a hunting estate of the Visconti and then of the Sforza.
Today it is a private home and is seen from the outside. The best part is precisely the façade: the restorations have freed the large arched windows with their terracotta frames and brought a few fragments of fresco back to light.
The name comes from a wood. When the city ended much farther out, there was a wooded area here, good for hunting, and the country residence of the lords of Milan took its name. The oldest traces, in some parts of the structure and in certain elements of the façade, reveal an earlier core from the fourteenth century.
The tallest, most massive block, at the corner with Via Porro, dates from the fifteenth century: with its big round-arched windows and elaborate terracotta frames, it looks almost like the tower of a castle. Behind the noble part, the U-shaped closed courtyard has the rustic look of the farm wings.
On the façade, like a checkerboard, two painted decorations repeat: a beehive and a lily, set in panels that imitate niches. The beehive is a honeycomb resting on a table and surrounded by branches to protect it from predators, with the motto “Per meo merito”.
It was deciphered by a study carried out in 2018 by the superintendency of the Castello Sforzesco, led by Claudio Salsi. The symbol links the farmstead to the Aicardi, a family very close to the Sforza, and the decoration would be a form of propaganda for that bond. The motto also appears in the Trivulziano Codex and in an armorial of 1673.
In the eighteenth century there were still five farmsteads of the Boscaiola, and only this one is left of them all. In documents it was also called “della Boscajola Prima” or “Morona”, because it was surrounded by mulberry trees, the “moroni”.
In the sixteenth century the chapel was demolished, and over time the residence became a farmstead, altered several times. The chapel with its frescoes was replaced by a barn.
After the war, in the strip near the Farini railway yard, sheds and workshops sprang up. One, the recreation club of the Branca liqueur factory, covered the façade on Viale Jenner: between 2007 and 2010 it was removed and in its place there is a small public garden, which gives the farmstead its view back.
Don't miss
• The arched windows.
• The painted beehive and lily.
• The tower-like block.
Did you know?
• The beehive with the motto “Per meo merito” is an extremely rare decoration, deciphered only in 2018.
• Of the five Boscaiola farmsteads of the eighteenth century, one remains.
Today it is a private home and is seen from the outside. The best part is precisely the façade: the restorations have freed the large arched windows with their terracotta frames and brought a few fragments of fresco back to light.
The name comes from a wood. When the city ended much farther out, there was a wooded area here, good for hunting, and the country residence of the lords of Milan took its name. The oldest traces, in some parts of the structure and in certain elements of the façade, reveal an earlier core from the fourteenth century.
The tallest, most massive block, at the corner with Via Porro, dates from the fifteenth century: with its big round-arched windows and elaborate terracotta frames, it looks almost like the tower of a castle. Behind the noble part, the U-shaped closed courtyard has the rustic look of the farm wings.
On the façade, like a checkerboard, two painted decorations repeat: a beehive and a lily, set in panels that imitate niches. The beehive is a honeycomb resting on a table and surrounded by branches to protect it from predators, with the motto “Per meo merito”.
It was deciphered by a study carried out in 2018 by the superintendency of the Castello Sforzesco, led by Claudio Salsi. The symbol links the farmstead to the Aicardi, a family very close to the Sforza, and the decoration would be a form of propaganda for that bond. The motto also appears in the Trivulziano Codex and in an armorial of 1673.
In the eighteenth century there were still five farmsteads of the Boscaiola, and only this one is left of them all. In documents it was also called “della Boscajola Prima” or “Morona”, because it was surrounded by mulberry trees, the “moroni”.
In the sixteenth century the chapel was demolished, and over time the residence became a farmstead, altered several times. The chapel with its frescoes was replaced by a barn.
After the war, in the strip near the Farini railway yard, sheds and workshops sprang up. One, the recreation club of the Branca liqueur factory, covered the façade on Viale Jenner: between 2007 and 2010 it was removed and in its place there is a small public garden, which gives the farmstead its view back.
Don't miss
• The arched windows.
• The painted beehive and lily.
• The tower-like block.
Did you know?
• The beehive with the motto “Per meo merito” is an extremely rare decoration, deciphered only in 2018.
• Of the five Boscaiola farmsteads of the eighteenth century, one remains.