Villa Carlotta is a villa and botanical garden in Tremezzo on Lake Como, completed in 1745 and now a museum. The Clerici family, silk merchants, began the estate in 1690, and Anton Giorgio Clerici finished it. Giovanni Battista Sommariva, a banker in Napoleon's northern Italian government, bought it in 1801. He added balconies, a facade clock, a chapel and an English-style garden.
Princess Marianne of the Netherlands bought it in 1843. In 1847 she gave it to her daughter Charlotte as a wedding gift, and it was renamed Villa Carlotta. Her husband, Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, a botanist, later expanded the garden with rare species.
The collection includes Antonio Canova's Palamedes and Bertel Thorvaldsen's marble frieze of Alexander the Great. The garden covers about eight hectares. The Ente Villa Carlotta foundation has managed the villa since 1927.
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