Over the last 50 years, many places in Varese Province, with their fascinating landscapes and natural resources, have acquired an architectural-artistic heritage, the highlight of which is the "painted villages". The town of Marchirolo, and hamlets such as Arcumeggia, Boarezzo, Olona, Peveranza, Runo, and San Fermo are known today for their wall paintings and frescos, which fit in harmoniously with the surrounding environment. The figurative themes of these paintings are linked to the origins of the place, to their customs and traditions, to the work activities and to popular beliefs, in a single palette of bright colours, which can be enjoyed in every season.

Runo (a hamlet near Dumenza)
The municipality of Dumenza, which lies in a valley surrounded by woods, gave the name to Val Dumentina. In 1978, some inhabitants of Runo decided to create a cultural-tourist association called "Runo per l'affresco" (Runo for frescoes), with the aim of creating a "mural book" to "leaf through" along the streets of the village. The project, which was supposed to last until 2000, ended around 1983, but despite this, over one hundred frescoes of the most varied subjects were painted by several artists on the walls of the houses. Other frescos were painted in the nearby hamlet of Stivigliano. In addition to this initiative, it was decided to decorate the tiles that bear the street numbers with images of local flora and fauna.

The painter and decorator who stole the Mona Lisa
Dumenza is the birthplace of the artist Bernardino Luini, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, and of Vincent Peruggia, a painter and decorator, who became famous for stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum, in 1911. And the hamlet of Runo is famous for being the birthplace of Bartolomeo Scappi, the "secret" chef of Pope Pius V, and author of the greatest book on Renaissance cuisine, a work on the art of cooking.


Arcumeggia (a hamlet near Casalzuigno)
Arcumeggia is a small hamlet near Casalzuigno that lies at the very heart of the green valley of Valcuvia. In addition to being the most famous painted village in Varese Province, Arcumeggia was the first example of an "Open-air Fresco Gallery" in Italy. In 1956, the site was chosen by the then Varese Tourist Board as the venue for the event "Painters on holiday" ("Pittori in vacanza"), which would attract artists that represented Italian thought and the most important Italian trends of the second half of the twentieth century. The subjects painted include images of emigration, allegoric and symbolic figures, portraits of local inhabitants and crafts, as well as saints and religion scenes. Naturalistic representations and landscapes were added more recently.

Artists from Arcumeggia
The first artists who used the ancient and traditional fresco technique included: Achille Funi, Eugenio Torniolo, Gianfilippo Usellini, Francesco Menzio, Fiorenzo Tornea, Giovanni Brancazzo, Enzo Morelli, Bruno Saetti, and Ferruccio Ferrazzi. These were followed by other well-known artists, such as Aligi Sassu, Remo Brindisi, Giuseppe Migneco, Gianni Dova, Aldo Carpi, and Umberto Faini, and local painters, such as Innocente Salvini, Antonio Pedretti, and Albino Reggiori.

The Painter's House
The ambitious project of transforming Arcumeggia into an "Open-air Fresco Gallery", which is still being pursued today, required the building of facilities that could accommodate the artists while they were producing their works. And thus, in 1957, the Painter's House was built, as a place where they could spend the night and work on sketches for their frescoes. The House is home to several works, including panels, paintings, preliminary boards, and sketches on paper that bear witness to the visits and work of these artists.