"In the Archduke Gardens" Collection Nymphaeum and ravine cave

The cave - nymphaeum had an elaborate architectural facade and a terrace - a belvedere with a balustrade in Piermarini's project, which offered a scenic view of the tree-lined avenue that extended east along the northern elevation of the building, up to the Lambro river. Precious testimony of the original structure of this structure, subsequently stripped of the stone covering.
Thanks to the architect Luigi Canonica's project in the Royal Gardens (from the first decade of the nineteenth century) the facade with paired pilasters, with rusticated ashlar bands, is seriously damaged while the organ inside the cave is compromised due to humidity. In 1814 the water features were therefore "completely rebuilt", while the facade was removed the following year, also due to the elimination of the long tree-lined avenue that ended on the scenographic backdrop of the nymphaeum. During the Second World War, some animals from the Milan zoo arrived in the Royal Gardens in Monza. A bear is welcome in the cave, inside the rock garden.
Ten Luigi Canonica provided for the construction of a structure in imitation of a natural cave, with rustic blocks of log leaning against the old wall, to complete the rock garden created by Piermarini on the inspiration of Ercole Silva, or the previous text by Thomas Whately (L'art de former les jardins modernes ou l'art des jardins anglois, 1771).