Inside Villa Schiaparelli, the Milan home of the renowned fashion designer’s astronomer uncle

Giovanni’s own story deepens that sense of place. He worked at the Brera Observatory for four decades and served as its director. During the great opposition— when Mars and the sun are aligned on “opposing sides of Earth—of 1877, he mapped Mars, noting and describing a network of canali, the channels or grooves on the planet’s surface. When it was translated into English as “canals”, the word sparked a wave of public fascination and a century of speculation about intelligent life on Mars. The idea of Martian engineers was never his intent, yet it captured the public imagination.

In something of a full-circle moment, at the fashion house that bears Elsa’s name, its creative director Daniel Roseberry recently looked to the cosmos to inspire the designs for his spring-summer 2024 haute couture show. He acknowledged Giovanni’s Martian maps as part of the brand’s imaginative orbit, proof that an early fascination with the cosmos can still animate a very modern couture idea.

Don’t miss: Meet Phan Huy, the youngest ever and first Vietnamese designer to debut at Paris Haute Couture Week

The current owners of his home worked with interior designer Miranda Morico, who describes the project as a dialogue between history, colour and modern design. “The villa already carried extraordinary character through its frescoed ceilings and original floors, so our first priority was to honour that heritage,” she explains.

Rather than altering the structure, she focused on light, colour and furnishings, choosing bold tones such as teal, deep green and red to bring energy into each room. She chose to forgo curtains, allowing natural light and the view of the garden to become part of the interiors.

Modern pieces were chosen to contrast with the villa’s historic gravitas, while personal touches tied the home to the couple’s world; Lonido’s paintings and Mariani’s photography shape many of the rooms. “The aim was a balance where the weight of the past meets the creativity of the present,” Morico says. “The house tells both stories at once.”

Lonido describes the palette as a path through the house, with each colour offering a different emotion. And then there’s the furnishings: modern pieces sit beside classics, photographs near handcrafted objects, Scandinavian restraint next to Italian elegance. It all feels lived in because it is—New Year’s Eve means a table full of friends and a horizon alive with fireworks, Weekends mean open doors, conversation and music, and people who use the rooms rather than tiptoe through them.

That sense of ease comes with a profound humility. “We do not really feel we own this house,” Lonido says. “It is something we are privileged to take care of for a small amount of time before handing it to the next generation.” After Mariani and Lonido moved in, the previous owners visited and were moved to tears to see the house alive again. “We felt the circle,” Mariani says. “Love passed from one family to the next.”

The couple often speaks about the house as if it were a living being, something that responds to the way it is treated. This is a belief that resonates far beyond Italy. In many Asian cultures, a home carries the energy of those who have cared for it and every object holds a trace of its past.

In case you missed it: Billionaires with a heart and soul: how the Dalios are working to protect our oceans

Walking through the villa, there is a similar sense of continuity and quiet charge, as if the love invested by previous generations still lingers softly in the walls. Mariani and Lonida feel that daily and it strengthens their conviction that they are simply guardians of a spirit that was already here; their role is to honour it and allow it to flow forward.

They hope others will feel that current as well. They host often and are exploring artist residencies so that creative people can work in the villa and be nourished by it. “It does not feel right that only we live there,” Mariani says. “The house deserves to be experienced.” Lonido also admits she rarely imagines the project as finished. The rooms invite evolution: a billiard room became a cosy space to read and relax; a formal study now functions as their office and carries the new owners’ own character and rhythm.

These changes are respectful rather than radical. Frescoes, floors and doors remain. The gate still carries the initials of Maria Comotti, the woman who inherited the villa and brought Giovanni here as her husband. The house, as the couple puts it, is part of the family, not a thing to be consumed.

Perhaps that is why the villa feels unusually present. You sense it at twilight when the cypresses turn ink-dark and when, from the balcony, you lift your gaze to the stars. You feel it in rooms that glow with colour drawn from history yet chosen for the present. And you hear it in Elsa’s voice, which seems to drift gently through the corridors—a young niece once shown the sky by an uncle who found wonder there. Mariani and Lonido are simply the latest caretakers. Their privilege is to love it; their duty is to pass it on.

NOW READ

Gigi Leung is back, in a dark new role you never imagined Hong Kong’s rom-com sweetheart to take

A modern, and very luxe, wellness pilgrimage to Siem Reap

What do the Silk Road, ancient Cyprus and Swiss watchmakers have in common?