Villa Emo
Encyclopedia
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, near the village of Fanzolo di Vedelago
Vedelago
Vedelago is a comune in the Province of Treviso in the Italian region Veneto, located about 35 km northwest of Venice and about 20 km west of Treviso....
. It was designed by Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
in 1559 for the Emo family of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and remained in the hands of the Emo family until it was sold in 2004. Since 1996, it has been conserved as part of the World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
"City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
Palladian Villas of the Veneto
The City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site protecting a cluster of works by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called "Vicenza, City of Palladio" and only buildings in the...
".
History
The building of Villa Emo was the culmination of a long-lasting project of the patrician Emo family of the Republic of VeniceRepublic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
to develop its estates at Fanzolo. In 1509, which saw the defeat of Venice in the War of the League of Cambrai
War of the League of Cambrai
The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and by several other names, was a major conflict in the Italian Wars...
, the estate on which the villa was to be built was bought by Leonardo di Giovanni Emo from the Barbarigo family. The landscape of Fanzolo has a continuous history since Roman times and it has been suggested that the layout of the villa reflects the straight lines of the Roman road
Roman road
The Roman roads were a vital part of the development of the Roman state, from about 500 BC through the expansion during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate. The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 km...
s.
The Emo family's central interest was at first in the cultivation of their newly-acquired land. Not until two generations had passed did Leonardo di Alvise Emo commission Palladio to build a new villa in Fanzolo. We unfortunately do not have any firm dates for the commencement of the new building: the years 1555 or 1558 have been proposed. The date of completion is put at 1565; a document which attests to the marriage of Leonardo di Alvise with Cornelia Grimani has come down to us from that year.
Architectural details
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. It has been praised for the simple mathematical relationships expressed in its proportions, both of the elevation and the dimensions of the rooms. In 1570 Palladio published a plan of the villa in his treatise I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura
I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura
I quattro libri dell'architettura is an Italian treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio . It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated with woodcuts after the author's own drawings. It has been reprinted and translated many times...
. Unlike some of the other plans he included in this work, the one of Villa Emo corresponds nearly exactly to what was built.
Villa Badoer
Villa Badoer is a villa in Fratta Polesine in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was designed in 1556 by Andrea Palladio for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, and built between 1557 and 1563, on the site of a medieval castle which guarded a bridge across a navigable canal...
and a number of the other designs by Palladio.
Andrea Palladio emphasises the usefulness of the lay-out in his treatise. He points out that the grain stores and work areas could be reached under cover, which was particularly important. Also, it was necessary for the Villa Emo's size to correspond to the returns obtained by good management. These returns must in fact have been considerable, for the side-wings of the building are unusually long, a visible symbol of prosperity. The Emo family introduced the cultivation of maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
on their estate (and the plant, still new in Europe, is depicted in one of Zelotti's frescoes). In contrast to the traditional cultivation of millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
, considerably higher returns could be obtained from the maize.
It is not clear if the long walk, made of large square paving-stones, which leads to the front of the house, served a practical purpose. It seems to be a fifteenth-century threshing floor
Threshing floor
A threshing floor is a specially flattened surface, usually circular and paved, where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest and then winnow it, before the advent of threshing machines from the nineteenth century onwards. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single...
. However, Palladio advised that threshing
Threshing
Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. It is the step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain...
should not be carried out near a house.
The outer appearance of the Villa Emo is marked by a simple treatment of the entire body of the building, whose structure is determined by a geometrical rhythm.
The living quarters are raised above ground-level, as are all of Palladio's other villas.
Instead of the usual staircase going up to the main front door, the building has a wide ramp with a gentle slope.
A wide flight of steps leads up to the loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
which takes the form of a
column portico crowned by a gable - a temple front which Palladio applied to secular buildings. As in the case with the Villa Badoer
Villa Badoer
Villa Badoer is a villa in Fratta Polesine in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was designed in 1556 by Andrea Palladio for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, and built between 1557 and 1563, on the site of a medieval castle which guarded a bridge across a navigable canal...
, the loggia does not stand out from the core of the building as an entrance hall, but is retracted into it. The emphasis of simplicity extends to the column order of the loggia, for which Palladio chose the extremely plain Tuscan order
Tuscan order
Among canon of classical orders of classical architecture, the Tuscan order's place is due to the influence of the Italian Sebastiano Serlio, who meticulously described the five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of Regole generalii di...
.
Frescoes
The exterior is simple, bare of any decoration. In contrast, the interior is richly decorated with frescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es by Giovanni Battista Zelotti
Giovanni Battista Zelotti
Giovanni Battista Zelotti was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, active in Venice and her mainland territories.He appears to have been born in Venice, and trained with Antonio Badile and Domenico Riccio, as well as perhaps Titian. Bernasconi claims he trained with his uncle Paolo Farinati...
, who also worked on Villa Foscari
Villa Foscari
thumb|Villa Foscari: facing the [[Brenta]]Villa Foscari is a patrician villa in Mira, near Venice, northern Italy, designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio...
and other Palladian villas.
The main series of frescoes in the villa is grouped in an area with scenes featuring Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, the goddess of love. Zelotti appears to have begun work on the frescoes in 1565. In the Great Room, the events in the frescoes concentrate on humanistic ideals, exemplary scenes such as Virtue portrayed in a scene from the life of Scipio Africanus
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...
. The Abstinence of Scipio appears frequently in cycles of frescoes for Venetian villas. For example, the Villa la Porto Colleoni in Thiene
Thiene
Thiene is a city and comune in the province of Vicenza, in northern Italy, located approximately 75 km west of Venice and 200 km east of Milan....
and Villa Cordellina in Montecchio Maggiore
Montecchio Maggiore
Montecchio Maggiore is a town and comune in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. It is situated approximately 12 km west of Vicenza and 43 km east of Verona, SP 246 passes through it....
, built nearly 200 years later, also use this image, fostering ideals which, had in the 15th and 16th centuries, resulted from the renewed discussion of the depravity of town life, in contrast to the tranquility, abundance, and freedom of artistic thought associated with rural existence. Hence, another room in the villa is called the Room of the Arts, featuring frescoes with allegories of individual arts, such as astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, poetry or music.
Media Interest
In the 1990s Villa Emo was featured in Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio, Bob VilaBob Vila
Robert Joseph "Bob" Vila is an American home improvement television show host known for This Old House , Bob Vila's Home Again , and Bob Vila .-Early life:...
's three-part six-hour production for A&E Network
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
.
The 2002 movie Ripley's Game
Ripley's Game (film)
Ripley's Game is a feature film based on the 1974 novel of the same name, the third in Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad," a series of books chronicling the murderous adventures of con artist Tom Ripley...
used the Villa Emo as a location.
See also
- Palladian Villas of the VenetoPalladian Villas of the VenetoThe City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site protecting a cluster of works by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called "Vicenza, City of Palladio" and only buildings in the...