This is a private garden that houses the most important collection of camellias of the Lago Maggiore (Lake Maggiore). This collection includes 600 species originating from countries all over the world, which mirror tastes and fashions of various epochs. This garden overlooks the Piedmont’s bank of the lake in the town of Oggebbio Gonte, and the notary Carlo Berzio, who began the collection of rare and exotic species, created it in 1872. A group of XIX century camellias that were planted in the oldest part of the park, stimulated a group of researchers to found in 1965 the Società Italiana della Camelia (Camellia’s Italian Society). From that moment the collection has been progressively enriched, to the point of having now both winter and spring camellias.
