Villa Olmo owes its name to a magnificent more than 100-year-old elm, no longer existing today. Of Neoclassical style, it was built by the Marquis Innocenzo Odescalchi, whose family was the birthplace of Pope Innocent XI (1676-1689). The construction of the villa began in 1782 and was completed in 1797. The director of the works was Simone Cantoni, a well-known Ticino architect, who elaborated the original project drawn up by his contemporary Innocenzo Regazzoni. Shortly after the end of the works, the historical visits began, among which we remember that of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 and Ugo Foscolo in 1808.
With the death of Innocenzo Odescalchi, in 1824, the villa passed to the Raimondi family, who arranged the square in front of the building. In 1835 it was the scene of the meeting between the queen of the two Sicilies and the queen of Sardinia and, subsequently, of other important visits such as those of the Austrian emperors Francesco Ferdinando I and Maria Carolina, of the prince of Metternich, of the marshal Radetzsky and of Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose passage is marked by a small medallion on a fireplace in one of the lounges on the ground floor.
In 1883 the heirs of the Marquis Raimondi sold the villa to Duke Guido Visconti di Modrone, who decided to carry out restoration interventions, even inside the building, including the construction, in 1883, of the theater.
In 1924 the villa passed from the Visconti di Modrone to the Municipality of Como and, in the following years, it was the backdrop to many events, including, in 1927, the International Exhibition, in the first centenary of the death of Alessandro Volta.
