Villa Emo is an Italian
villaA villa was originally an upper-class country house, though since its origins in Roman times the idea and function of a villa has evolved considerably. After the fall of the Republic, a villa became a small, fortified farming compound, gradually re-evolving through the Middle Ages into luxurious,...
in the
VenetoVeneto , is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 4.8 million, and its capital is Venice....
near the village of Fanzolo di
VedelagoVedelago 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 PalladioAndrea Palladio , was a Italian Renaissance architect from Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential architect in the history of Western architecture...
in 1559 for the Emo family of
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
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 SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term.A World Heritage Site is a...
"City of Vicenza and the
Palladian 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...
".
The building of Villa Emo was the culmination of a long-lasting project of the patrician Emo family of the
Republic of VeniceThe Most Serene 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 AD until the year 1797...
to develop its estates at Fanzolo.
Villa Emo is an Italian
villaA villa was originally an upper-class country house, though since its origins in Roman times the idea and function of a villa has evolved considerably. After the fall of the Republic, a villa became a small, fortified farming compound, gradually re-evolving through the Middle Ages into luxurious,...
in the
VenetoVeneto , is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 4.8 million, and its capital is Venice....
near the village of Fanzolo di
VedelagoVedelago 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 PalladioAndrea Palladio , was a Italian Renaissance architect from Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential architect in the history of Western architecture...
in 1559 for the Emo family of
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
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 SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term.A World Heritage Site is a...
"City of Vicenza and the
Palladian 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...
".
History
The building of Villa Emo was the culmination of a long-lasting project of the patrician Emo family of the
Republic of VeniceThe Most Serene 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 AD until the year 1797...
to develop its estates at Fanzolo. In 1509, which saw the defeat of Venice in the
War of the League of CambraiThe 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 roadThe Roman roads were essential for the growth of the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate news. The Roman road system spanned more than 250,000 miles of roads, including more than 50,000 miles of paved roads...
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
It is one of the most accomplished of the Palladian Villas, showing the benefit of 20 years of Palladio's experience in domestic
architectureFor a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of architecture. Architecture is the art and science of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures for human shelter or use....
. 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'ArchitetturaI 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 engravings 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.
The house is framed by two colonnaded wings which originally housed agricultural activities, for this was a working villa like
Villa BadoerVilla 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
maizeMaize , is a herbaceous plant domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents...
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
milletThe 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 floorA threshing floor is a specially flattened surface made either of rock or beaten earth where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family. It was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind....
. However, Palladio advised that
threshingThreshing 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 before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.Threshing may be done by...
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
loggiaLoggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Italian 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 BadoerVilla 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 orderAmong the classical orders of architecture, the Tuscan order's place in the architectural canon is disputed. The order was only defined in the canon of classical architecture by Italian architectural theorists of the 16th century. The five orders including a "Tuscan order" were meticulously...
.
Frescoes
The exterior is simple, bare of any decoration. In contrast, the interior is richly decorated with
frescoFresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins...
es by
Giovanni Battista ZelottiGiovanni 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 Foscarithumb|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
VenusVenus was a major Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths. From the third century BC, the increasing Hellenization of Roman upper classes identified her as the equivalent of the Greek goddess...
, 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 AfricanusPublius Cornelius Scipio Africanus also known as Scipio Africanus, Scipio the Elder, and Africanus 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
ThieneThiene is a city in the province of Vicenza, in northern Italy, located approximately 75 km west of Venice and 200 km east of Milan.The city has an active and lively industrial sector, composed mainly of small-to-medium sized companies. It also has one the top ranked Italian boardwalks...
and Villa Cordellina in
Montecchio MaggioreMontecchio Maggiore is a town 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 year 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
astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
, poetry or music.
Media Interest
In the 1990s Villa Emo was featured in
Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio,
Bob VilaRobert J. "Bob" Vila, born , 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 NetworkA&E is a cable and satellite television network with headquarters in Manhattan and offices in Stamford, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London. A&E stands for Arts & Entertainment, which, for many years, was in the channel's full title...
.
The 2002 movie
Ripley's GameRipley'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 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...