Built at the request of empress Maria Theresa of Austria as a summer residence for her son Ferdinand, this royal palace was designed to imitate Lombard villas. The palace and its extensive gardens are now part of Monza Park.
In 1771, archduke Ferdinand of Augsburg arrived in Milan as its new governor with his wife, Beatrice d'Este, establishing his court here. This neoclassical palace, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini in 1777 and finished in only three years, was used by the archduke as his country residence until the Napoleonic troops arrived in 1796.
With the arrival of Napoleon, the villa was occupied by his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. After his fall, it went into Austrian hands which abandoned the building until 1818, when it came into the possession of Lombard-Veneto viceregent Giuseppe Ranieri. In 1818 field marshal Radetzky turned it into its residence.
After the fall of the Austrian regime, king Umberto I of Savoy lived here and renovated the buildings with the help of architect Majnoni, making it more suitable to his late 19th-century taste. But when the king was murdered in Monza, his son refused to use the Royal Palace and decided to close it and bequeath it to the town council
Fully restored in 2003 after years of decay, the palace boasts a distinctive neoclassical style. There are four floors in the main building. The ground floor currently houses two restaurants, a cafe, bookshop, and workshops. On the first floor, you can visit the royal private chambers which feature not only bedrooms but a billiard room, library, studio and bathrooms, as well as the public rooms, including the throne room, ballroom, dining room, and mirror room. The second floor contains further private apartments, while the upper floor is where the servants lived.
The large palace estate and complex also features a royal chapel, richly decorated with stuccoes and paintings, as well as a small theatre for 120 courtesans built in 1806 by Luigi Canonica, a large conservatory and orangerie for exotic plants, and a rotonda.
