The Franciscan convent La Scaruola was founded by Saint Francis in 1218, where a laurel bush and a rose bush were planted, and water sprang fresh from the site. It takes its name from the Scarza, a marsh plant the Saint used to build his initial hut on the property.
Tommaso Buzzi acquired the Franciscan convent in 1956 with the intention to restore it, and then he started building his ideal “city”, a theatrical edifice, next to the convent, elaborating his original plan from 1958 to 1978.

Buzzi was an architect, inventor, restorer, aside from curating the interior design in important historic buildings, he was also a Professor of Furnishing Design in Milan’s Politecnico. This place reveals his fertile and creative imagination.

The “Buzziana” city has seven theatres, and an Acropolis that hosts a series of empty rooms filled with empty compartments, imitating termite tunnels.

The best way to describe his style is Neo-mannerism; the stairways leading towards every angle, purposefully disproportionate in certain sections, and the presence of monsters and superimposed buildings, brings an air of surreal, evocative, geometric, astronomical, and magical energy to this labyrinth.
He made an unparalleled construction intended as an oasis for meditation, studies, music, silence and contemplation.
Anyone here can find vibrations from the ancient past, and hints of what is to come.
Buzzi’s work was classified by one crowning point: an infinite reach that remains incomplete. He passed in 1981, leaving his work unfinished.

“I’d like to leave the charm of something unfinished, adjacent to the ruins. Together, they create the fourth dimension, that of time. I like to give that same feel to the garden; time and movement that define the statues themselves.”