Palazzo Besta is a splendid Renaissance residence, decorated with frescoes of legends and Bible stories. Surrounded on three sides by garden, it is located in the ancient borgo of Teglio, on a high plain known as “de li beli miri” because of its view of the Bergamasque Alps.
It was built between the late 1400s and early 1500s by Azzo I Besta and his son Azzo II, members of a noble family from Valtellina who lived here until 1726. The entrance is an elegant stone portal which leads into a courtyard – the heart of the complex – which occupies a perfectly cubic space. The walls of the courtyard, cadenced by a double order of columns, are decorated with stories from Virgil’s Aeneid and motifs from Renaissance humanism including grottesche and medallions featuring people dressed in clothing from ancient times.
The first and second floors feature important fresco cycles painted between the 1500s and 1600s, including one based on Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in the Salone d’Onore and scenes from the Book of Genesis in the Sala della Creazione.
The interior features four stüe, heated rooms typical of the architecture of Valtellina that are lined in Swiss pine and feature a heating apparatus known as a pigna. Most of domestic life took place in these rooms which are comparable to the living rooms of today. The ground floor of the museum houses the Antiquarium Tellinum, an important collection of engraved stele dating to the Bronze Age (III millennium B.C.) found in the area of Teglio.
Museo di Palazzo Besta
Via Fabio Besta, 8, 23036 Teglio - Sondrio (SO)
Tel: +39 0342 781208
