Veduta generale della facciata settentrionale (Fototeca ISAL-BAMS Photo Rodella)
The northern façade with its sober and regular lines designed by Giuseppe Piermarini, famed architect of the first Lombard neoclassical age, was completely renovated in 1817 for Giovanni Traversi, by the eclectic Pelagio Palagi, following the lines of a magnificent academic neoclassicism, that well corresponded to the ambitions of a bourgeoisie owner in search of noble styles.
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The front of the villa acted as the scenic theatre wing of highly illusionary value through careful inclinations of the vertical rhythms of the upper floor and the introduction of protruding structures at the ends. Its lower strip, enclosed between the skirting and moulding is dominated in the central portion by a neat sequence of doors surmounted by round arches. The windows are surmounted by smooth architraves accompanied at the sides in the elements joining with the more protruding lateral, engraved framed windows within the full arches. This upper strip with two floors, is defined at the upper end by a string course between floors, and characterised by a pillar terminating with Corinthian capitals, repeated in an insistent manner. The rectangular windows on the first floor are surmounted by a triangular tympanic cavity, and on the second there are no decorations. The two lateral protruding structures are crowned by cavities in which relief cupids hold up the portraits of the owners, Giovanni Battista Traversi and Francesca Milesi.
The northern façade, with two protruding structures and lower service wings enclose the courtyard of honour, in turn delimited by the beautiful gate in cast iron, the work of Pelagio Palagi. This is completed by a series of statues on the crown, which gives it a vertical thrust. On the upper strip one can read the inscription VILLA TRAVERSI ANNO MDCCCXLIV, where the date 1844 indicates the year the works terminated.
