The Tondü Palace

12 August 2020

The canton of Tessin has welcomed many German-speaking Swiss visitors in the  summer of 2020. For many it was a discovery of this beautiful canton. How many, however, know the Tondü Palace in the village of Lionza, near Locarno?

The village has only twenty inhabitants nowadays. The Italian palace at an altitude of 780 meters in a small town was built between 1650 and 1690.

This history of the castle begins with the chimney sweep Andrea Tondü. He left the village and moved to Parma with his two sons in the seventeenth century. His sons became rich and built the palace.

The family was engaged in the silk trade and banking sector and settled in Parma.

The palace in Tondü was their summer residence. The Tondü family donated the palace to the village of Lionza in 1784. 

(Source: Fondazione casa Tondü di Lionza, www.palazzotondu.ch).