Gala Dinner at Villa Castelbarco

Gala Dinner (June, 26th) will be organized in Vaprio d’Adda, in the hearth of Lombardy, province of Milan, on the bank of Adda river and Naviglio canal.

</p> <p>Bus transfer service

Bus shuttle from Bovisa Campus to Gala dinner site will be available Wednesday 26th:

the first buses will start leaving at 17:45 from Via Lambruschini
the last bus will leave at 18:20 from Via Lambruschini

Return shuttle will start leaving at the end of the dinner to 3 different destinations:

Milano Cadorna railway station
Milano Centrale railway station
Porta Garibaldi railway station

Villa Castelbarco is dipped into an amazing natural frame made of eighty thousand square meters of park where it is still possible to catch sight of free deer. Villa Castelbarco is a private House able to combine the requirements of functionality of the present and an elegant architectural frame of the past. It is possible to date the beginning of the settlement around the 1100 AD. In the same period, according to some scholars, a monastery was built by the Cistercians friars in that area, following the wrecking of what was considered the “centre” of the Cistercians, which dates back to the VII century AD and maybe stood where today the church of “San Colombano”, in Vaprio d’Adda lies. The original structure seems to be very simple, therefore attributable to monks, maybe to the austere tradition of the order of San Colombano (540-615), who followed the message of the Irish Saint.

In the architecture of the Villa it is still possible to indentify the different parts built around the court near the church, typical of a monastery. This court is characterized by a double portico that could be the double cloister of the monastery. Up to now it is still possible to feel the sense of unity around the place of worship: the chapter house, the dorms, the refectory are all constructed around the church. The function of the House as a monastery continued perhaps also after the creation of the noble residency, as witnesses a pastoral visitation of Padre Leonetto Clavonio in 1570 and a historic map of XVIIth century AD that illustrated the presence of a Monastery in Concesa.