Home tour: inside Villa Schiaparelli, the home where the surrealist legend once walked

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 of 1877, he mapped Mars and described a network of canali—channels or grooves on the planet’s surface. When 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. Giovanni himself remained grounded in the quiet awe of observation. He was honoured widely in his lifetime and eventually appointed a senator of Italy, yet he stayed focused on the sky rather than ceremony.

Inside, the couple worked with interior designer Miranda Morico, who describes the project as a dialogue between history, colour and modern design. “The [Schiaparelli] 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. No curtains were used, 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 grounded the home in 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. 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.

The spirit of the house feels surprisingly current. At the fashion house that bears Elsa’s name, its creative designer Daniel Roseberry has recently looked to the cosmos with a modern eye, creating collections that nod to astronomy and myth while speaking a contemporary language of line and volume. In 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.

That ease at home sits beside 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.” The villa is a reminder of what human hands could once make and what it would now cost to replicate. It deserves care, not exploitation. When the previous owners visited after Mariani and Lonido moved in, they 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 presence, something that responds to the way it is treated. It 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. 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. The couple feel that daily and it strengthens their conviction that they are simply keepers 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 here,” Mariani says. “The house deserves to be experienced.” Lonido also admits she rarely sees 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 the balcony lifts your gaze to the first star. 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 next caretakers. Their privilege is to love it. Their task is to pass it on.

NOW READ

Parma Antique Fair: a designer’s guide to Europe’s grandest

Spanish decorator Lorenzo Castillo welcomes us into his colourful world

Paradigm Shift: Hajar Ali shares the impact of AI in architecture and design