XIV - XX centuries

The Visconti di Modrone archive includes 27 folders of documentation, organized in a small independent fond, spanning from 1392 to 1846, relative to the Taverna family, one of the oldest and most illustrious Milanese and Lombard patrician families. Most of the documents from the 14th and 15th centuries are preserved as authentic and straightforward copies from the 16th to 18th centuries. It is a documentary nucleus acquired as part of a bequest from Gaetano Taverna (1777-1846) to Uberto Visconti di Modrone. The Duke inherited more than 970,000 Milanese lire from Taverna, on the condition that it would support his wife, Caterina Visconti of the Counts of Lonate Pozzo, until 1855. With the death of Count Gaetano, one of the two branches of the Taverna family was extinguished.

The documents were probably received all at once with the acquisition of the inheritance; as is customary in the Visconti archive, the files considered still useful for the administration were inserted into the current archive - where they remain today - mainly under the heading of Eredità, but also in other series of the 19th-century collection, and later classified by the family archivists.

Those of lesser interest found their place in the stored archive, without taking on a precise physiognomy or order, as can still be seen from the inventory today.

The papers concern in particular the territories owned by the Taverna family in Milan (the family owned houses in via Bigli and in Monforte, the current palazzo Isimbardi) and in the Lombard towns of Dergano, Lodi, Seregno, Landriano, Fizzonasco, and the feuds of Olevano di Lomellina and Camparada. These consist mainly of copies of wills of family members, documents relating to life annuities, trusts and inheritance documents.

Some folders contain the personal papers of Gaetano and Caterina Taverna.