Seriate

The villa is located in the centre of Seriate and its northern garden faces Via Dante. The southern garden is bordered by Via Molino Vecchio to the east and Via C. Colombo to the south.
The original body of the villa, being the only rectangular building facing Via Tasca, was built by the Counts Vertova in the first decades of the 18th century. Successively are two lateral elevations and some decorations, amongst which one stand out is the medallion with the image of Torquato Tasso on the façade.
Inside, an elegant porch with coupled columns of 17th-century design ends at two mortar ashlar buildings. From these are two other lower rectangular structures dating back to the second half of the 19th century, probably commissioned by the successive owners of the villa, being firstly the Tasca family then the Ambiveri family.
The last owner of the villa was Elisabetta (Betty) Ambiveri, eldest daughter of Giovanni Ambiveri and an important female presence in the socio-political reality of the 20th century not merely on a local level, as demonstrated by the numerous positions she held and initiatives she supported.
With its 58 rooms and chapel, Villa Ambiveri is a sumptuous manor house.
At the end of the courtyard are two large statues depicting the Nile and Tiber rivers on the parapet of two rectangular fishponds, once fed by the Martinenga irrigation millrace.

The villa and its 1,600 square metres of green area have been publicly listed since 1914.
Some of the rooms on the first floor are frescoed, in accordance with the fashion of the time, by the ‘hall painters’ Carlo Rancilio and Paolo Vincenzo Bonomini with neoclassical figures, panels and decorative vases. Another type of fresco, attributed to Nebbia – the nickname for Luigi Deleidi – can be admired in a room on the ground floor. It depicts a river landscape that, starting from the walls, rises seamlessly to the ceiling, dilating the space.
Villa Ambiveri houses the ETS Foundation and Public Association of the Faithful ‘Russia Cristiana’, established in 1957 by Father Romano Scalfi. The activities carried out and the cultural heritage maintained by Russia Cristiana in Villa Ambiveri include the iconographic atelier of “The School of Seriate”, the “Elisabetta Ambiveri” Slavistics Library, with a heritage of 40,000 volumes, the Travel Office and the archives of the Russia Cristiana Foundation, along with the editorial office of the independent information portal “La Nuova Europa”. In the chapel of Villa Ambiveri, decorated with icons from the School and important Russian masters, the Divine Liturgy is regularly celebrated in the Byzantine-Slavic ceremony.