Discover Tornaco

Tornaco brings together architectural and cultural history with rural landscapes. Villa Marzoni brings several historical traces together in one place; there are also the parish church of Santa Maria Maddalena and the MUDI, dedicated to the world of rice and the mondine. A described route and named landscape sites add other points of interest. If you choose a destination mainly for its local history, you will find both specific buildings and cultural themes rooted in agriculture here.

Villa Marzoni: Castle remains, architecture and museum

Villa Marzoni stands on a natural rise atop the remains of the keep of a 15th-century castle. Engineer Luigi Marzoni had the stately villa built in 1896. Two different historical points of reference thus meet at this site: the remains of the medieval keep and the later villa building. The date 1896 refers to the construction of the villa.

Original architectural features have been preserved on the villa’s interior façades. These include arches on columns on the first above-ground floor. This gives the architecture a specific focus: it is not only the building’s history that matters, but also the forms preserved on its interior façades. The Museo della Civiltà e Cultura della Bassa Novarese is also housed in the villa. A special feature of the museum is the Sala Miniature, with working miniature agricultural machines. Historical architecture and a specific perspective on agricultural technology thus come together in one building.

Church and other historical traces

The origins of the parish church of Santa Maria Maddalena date back to the 12th century. Another historical point of reference is a surviving section of wall, which probably corresponds to part of the fortification wall. It has an entrance arch and possibly a heavily modified tower element. Its identification as a tower element is therefore only a possibility, not a definite identification.

The Oratorio di Santo Stefano lies outside the built-up area, along the road to Vignarello. Its location thus differs clearly from that of the parish church in the town. When exploring Tornaco’s architectural history, both the parish church’s long history and the Oratorio, located outside the built-up area, are among the different historical points of reference.

MUDI: Rice, mondine and art in the streets

The MUDI is an open-air museum dedicated to the world of rice and the mondine—the women who worked in the rice fields. The MUDI also features large-scale reproductions of artworks on the exterior walls of residential buildings. Visitors can view the works as they walk through the streets. Here, then, art can be found on building façades in the streets, while the museum’s focus is on work in the rice fields. These two aspects give the MUDI a distinctive identity alongside Villa Marzoni’s architectural history.

Routes and landscape sites

After a stretch along an unpaved road and a poplar-lined avenue, Percorso 5 passes the Oratorio di Santo Stefano on its way to Tornaco. The route description thus links a specific course with the Oratorio, which lies outside the built-up area along the road to Vignarello. Both the route along the unpaved road and avenue and the named site along the way are useful landmarks.

The Fontana Valbordone is a risorgiva, or groundwater spring, where the waterside vegetation has been restored. Campo del Buschitt has a different focus: until the 1980s, the municipal land was used as an animal cemetery, and it is now being restored through the planting of native species. The two landscape sites therefore differ in their history and subject: the spring and waterside vegetation are central at Fontana Valbordone, while Campo del Buschitt is defined by its former use and restoration with native plants.

Discover more destinations: Fara Novarese, Miasino, Lesa, Soriso, Nebbiuno, Sillavengo, Gozzano, Comignago

For the broader travel overview: Novara.