Belluno

Expanded and partially transformed in the 19th century, it overlooks a terraced garden, enclosed by a small rustic building, connected to the main house by an arched portal. The chapel is now separated from the complex by the road. The thickness of some load-bearing walls and the very irregular shape of the outer wall to the north suggest the ancient presence of a pre-existing structure, possibly part of the fortified system mentioned in local chronicles.

The villa hosts tourist apartments and is open to visits by reservation.

The 19th-century  country villa of the Azzoni Avogadro family dominates from the top of a hill, surrounded by woods and cultivated fields.

Villa di Modolo is one of the 15 major villas in the province of Belluno and is included in the catalog of the one hundred Venetian villas by Antonio Canova.

A short distance from the center of Belluno, immersed in greenery, Villa Miari Fulcis is a true architectural gem that deserves a visit to be combined perhaps with a walk along the beautiful Modolo ring.

One arrives at a small square where the family chapel dedicated to San Lorenzo stands. Passing through the eighteenth-century gate, one enters the garden, meets the old stables, and finally the Villa di Modolo, a grand construction from the early 1800s designed by architect Andrea Miari.

The central body, decorated with Ionic and Corinthian semi-columns, extends into a wing to which another lower building is attached: the Barchessa, with a porch on the ground floor and cellars below where the date 1644 is still legible.

It was built in the eighteenth century, but the appearance you will see today is the result of changes made in the nineteenth century that affected both the villa and the old stables that flank it. Entering the halls on the first floor, admire the decorations and frescoes that embellish the walls. Unfortunately, these are only part of the entire decorative apparatus that was destroyed during the two world wars.                                                                                          Descending the large staircase, return outside, look for the coat of arms of the Miari family accompanied by the date 1806, and let your gaze wander over the beautiful garden  and the baroque railing beside the building, which encloses and protects this elegant villa.

The complex represents one of the major examples of villas perfectly integrated into the great tradition of the most significant Venetian models.

The Palace of the Magnificent Community of Mel is an elegant building whose construction began in 1510 and is now the seat of the Municipality of Borgo Valbelluna.

Above the roof, a small turret is noticeable, probably painted by Giovanni da Mel or his brother Marco, in which the large clock that was originally located in the bell tower destroyed by lightning in 1756 was placed. The entrance consists of a spacious loggia with semicircular arches and cross vaults supported on the outside by columns with Ionic capitals.

One can observe the sculpted coat of arms of the Zorzi family, counts of Mel from 1422 to 1720, embedded to the right of the entrance door, and the grills of the prisons from which the condemned would hear the sentence being read in the loggia. The loggia was a large hall frescoed by Giovanni da Mel with solid wood stalls, unfortunately lost during a severe fire in 1633. Access to the first floor is via a wide stone staircase leading to the main hall of the Palace facing the square through an artistic pentafora.

It was frescoed by Marco da Mel in 1545, as can be read from the date placed above the trifora in the hall itself. The theme of the frescoes references some scenes from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. On the east-facing wall, opposite the entrance, the fourth canto is taken up and although the fresco is fragmentary, some characters such as the wizard Brunello tied to the tree, the hippogriff, and the castle of Atlante are evident, along with homes, fortified cities, and small horse-riding figures in the background. Above the entrance, the painter is inspired by the thirty-third canto with Astolfo on the hippogriff arriving in Ethiopia to help the king threatened by the harpies, and to the right is the palace with elegant loggias where the king and the court feast.

Majestic decorative bands follow on the wide walls.

On the wall looking towards the Prealps, the portraits of Lucrezia and Costantino Zorzi, counts of Zumelle, painted between the end of the 1500s and the beginning of the 1600s and attributed to Domenico Tintoretto, son of Jacopo, stand out.

On the top floor, the mechanism that regulated the original clock of the tower is visible. Finally, in the council chamber, two paintings by the Zumellese painter Luigi Cima can be admired.