Sarnico is a major commercial and tourist centre located on the right bank of Lake Iseo, at the point where it begins to narrow and flows into Oglio River. The presence of wealthy businessmen in the city led to the construction of private villas and public buildings in the early 20th century in modern Italy’s new style of Liberty.
This “Liberty Town” is characterised by its villas, nursery school and cemetery mausoleum, all of which bear witness to the importance that upmarket tourism acquired in the first decade of the 20th century thanks to the wealthy Faccanoni family, originally from Milan. In fact, Pietro and Giuseppe Faccanoni commissioned Giuseppe Sommaruga to design their holiday villas in the town of Sarnico. As a result, this small town boasts the most number of buildings designed by Sommaruga, one of the Liberty’s leading figures.
Unlike other modern Italian designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as his contemporary architects, Sommaruga was able to deliver his own original take of this international artistic trend known as Art Nouveau.
Some of Sarnico’s Liberty heritage includes the nursery school (1912), at Don G. Besenzoni 8; Villa Surre (1912), at Vittorio Veneto 56; Villa Faccanoni (1907), located on the shores of Lake Iseo at Predore 5; Villa Passeri (1906), at Orgnieri 1, and the Faccanoni family mausoleum (1907) in the cemetery, which also includes Liberty-style small funeral temples.