Brenta Riviera

The traveler who in the eighteenth century faced the traditional Tour of Italy and, aboard the burchio went up the Brenta from Venice to Padua, could admire one of the jewels of the late Venetian Baroque: the complex of Villa Widmann Rezzonico Foscari.

Jewel among the jewels of the Brenta Riviera, Villa Widmann Rezzonico Foscari is characterized by its ancient statues, brilliant frescoes, created by Giuseppe Angeli and Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, Murano glass chandeliers and period furnishings. Its monumental park extends for over 16,000 square meters between avenues of hornbeams, ancient roses and a romantic lake with aquatic bald cypresses.

Built in the early eighteenth century by the will of the Serimanns, Venetian nobles of Persian origin, the Villa obtained its current shape only in the middle of the same century, when the Widmann family, after purchasing the property, modernized it adapting it to the French Rococo style. The central body thus became a welcoming home for parties and receptions. Currently the complex is owned by the Metropolitan City of Venice, formerly the Province of Venice.

As strange as it may seem, very little is known for certain about the villa: the date of construction is unknown, its architect is unknown, and the events surrounding it are vague. It was most likely commissioned by the Venetian patrician family of the Donà, who built it in the early decades of the 17th century, on the remains of a previous late 16th-century square-plan manor house.

In 1847, the Villa was acquired by the Jewish banking family Jacur from Padua. Internally, the layout is traditional with central halls, side rooms, and the staircase located to the east.

Only some parts of the frescoes in the ground floor hall remain visible. It is the hall located in the northeast that stands out as the most important room on the ground floor, perhaps of the entire Villa: a charming "sitting room" features frescoes of remarkable quality on mythological/religious themes, where putti rise to frame the windows and surround “mirrors” of marmorino—which originally were meant to host paintings, tapestries, or actual mirrors—giving the hall a scenic and sumptuous beauty.

The facade presents the classic modulation of Venetian villas with openings on three levels.

In Stra, not far from Venice and Padua, along the Brenta River, near Villa Pisani, stands the architectural complex of the 17th century called Villa Foscarini Rossi. According to aristocratic customs, the Foscarini family sent to call famous architects like Vincenzo Scamozzi, Francesco Contini, Giuseppe Jappelli, painters and decorators, such as Pietro Liberi and Domenico de Bruni, entrusted them with the task of creating and decorating a house that emphasized the importance of the family.

After a careful restoration, which has enhanced the pure architectural lines and the important frescoes, the entire complex of the Villa and Foresteria has been opened to the public, with the aim of making it alive as it had been conceived and wanted by the noble Foscarini.

The halls of the Villa have become a museum, while those of the Foresteria host conferences, meetings, receptions, concerts, exhibitions. In fact, the Villa houses the “Museum of footwear”, which collects the most representative models of the production of Rossimoda, which for years has been making the shoes of the most famous Italian, French and American designers.

It is assumed that the villa is from the early sixteenth century although over the centuries it was enriched with several interventions. In 1740 in addition to the manor house, there are mention of a garden, a vegetable garden and a "casino". It remained the property of the Cappello family until the Napoleonic era. In 1807 the complex was acquired by the public and merged with Villa Pisani.

In the meantime it becomes the residence of Eugene Beauharnais. Later the villa became the residence of Austrian officers and governors and the adjacent building was used as a barracks. The residential block has a rectangular plan and a traditional layout with a passing lounge. It is spread over three levels: a basement, two main floors and a mezzanine on the sides of the second level. At the back of the villa there is a boxwood garden and tall trees. At the bottom of the property there is a service building with arched spans and large Doric pilasters that mark the elevations.

The Villa passed into the ownership of the Contarini of San Trovaso and then the Barbarigo of Padua in the 1700s. During that period, Orsetta Barbarigo organized sumptuous parties and performances there. Later, it was inhabited by the Manin, then the Cipollato. Subsequently, the singer Adelaide Borghi-Mauro had it donated to her by an admirer. Between the end of the 19th century and 1955, it was home to other families: Guadalupi, Menin, Rampazzo (1921), and Capuzzo (from 1933 to 1955). It then passed to the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Blessed Imelda, and is currently owned by the Veneto Region. 

The complex of the Villa, set in a modest park, consists of a central body originally in a square plan, two detached lodges or Barchesse, and an Oratory with adjacent areas on the east side. In the engraving left by Coronelli in 1709, the central body appears to consist of a ground floor, first floor, and a second floor with a loft having square windows and a four-pitched roof. Costa, in his engraving of 1750, shows us instead the second floor with larger proportions and a third floor loft with a cross vault. Currently, the central body has a rectangular plan because in the early 19th century it was enlarged with the addition of small rooms along both sides for the full height. Perhaps this enlargement was the work of architect Carboni, who, and this is certain, added porticoes to connect the two Barchesse to the central body. The left (west) Barchessa or lodge consists of a basement with a vaulted ceiling, three halls decorated with frescoes, and at the front, a portico with five archways now closed off with wooden fixtures. The right (east) Barchessa consists of a hall also decorated with frescoes, stables, warehouses, and on the loft floor, rooms for the staff. It is also equipped with a portico with seven archways, now partially closed off with fixtures and partially (the last two arches) with masonry. The Oratory that currently exists at the southeast corner of the property was rebuilt in 1752.

The Pisani family of Santo Stefano, responsible for the construction of the villa, was an important branch of the Pisani lineage, an ancient Venetian patrician family. They became immensely wealthy during the fourteenth century thanks to commerce and real estate income, and in the fifteenth century, they became owners of a large estate in the lower Padua and during the same period began the construction of the grand Venetian palace in Campo Santo Stefano (the current "Benedetto Marcello" conservatory), which was completed only in the eighteenth century. This latter century was the family's golden age, reaching the highest offices in the Republic of Venice. Alvise Pisani (1664 - 1741) was an ambassador at the court of the Sun King, who was the godfather of one of his sons, and was later elected doge in 1735. But decline was already on the horizon: the collapse of the Republic (1797) and later the vice of gambling drove the Pisani into ruinous debt. For this reason, they were forced to sell the villa to Napoleon Bonaparte, who became King of Italy in 1805, on January 11, 1807, for 1,901,000 Venetian lire.

The villa was then gifted by Emperor Bonaparte to his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, who commissioned a series of modernization works that changed the appearance of many rooms in the residence and the park.

In 1814, the fate of Europe, decided at Waterloo, brought the Habsburg imperial family to Villa Pisani, now the rulers of the Lombardo-Veneto kingdom. The residence thus became a preferred summer retreat for Empress of Austria Maria Anna Carolina and hosted the entire elite of European aristocracy, from King of Spain Charles IV, to Tsar of Russia Alexander I, from King of Naples Ferdinand II, to King of Greece Otto, and many others. The brilliant courtly atmosphere came to an end in 1866, when Veneto was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. The Villa did not become part of the crown properties of the House of Savoy but instead became state property, thereby losing its representative function. No longer inhabited, it became a museum in 1884 and was visited by figures such as Wagner, D'Annunzio (who set a crucial scene of his novel "The Fire" there), Mussolini and Hitler (whose first official meeting took place here in 1934), Pasolini (who filmed a scene of his movie "Porcile" in the villa and the park).

The noble floor, consisting of thirty rooms, preserves frescoes, paintings, and original furnishings. A great splendor is achieved in the ballroom, located at the center of the building. Giambattista Tiepolo, the leading exponent of eighteenth-century painting in Italy, frescoed the Glory of the Pisani family on the ceiling, a masterpiece that survived by miracle, since in the early nineteenth century, it was about to be removed as part of the grand project of modernization of the building wanted by Eugène de Beauharnais. Of particular interest is the Napoleonic apartment, rich in treasures: the grand canopy bed surmounted by the emperor's initial, the splendid chests made by the Lombard inlayer Giuseppe Maggiolini, favored by European courts, the monochromes of Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua narrating the myth of Eros and Psyche, and the precious Empire-style furniture made especially for Villa Pisani. Inside the Dining Room, the table is set with a service of dishes used by the Napoleonic court.

The park, winner of the award "Most Beautiful Park in Italy 2008", occupies an entire bend of the Naviglio del Brenta, covering as much as 11 hectares with an external perimeter of about 1,500 meters. It was created based on a project by the Padua architect Girolamo Frigimelica de' Roberti. In the eighteenth century, the spectacular view was enhanced by broderies with large colossal statues on either side. The organization of the park for long perspectives recalls the French models applied by André Le Nôtre at Versailles and intersects with the Venetian tradition of the walled garden, open through portals and windows that extend the views over the Brenta. The Austrian nineteenth century will be characterized, however, by great attention paid to potted and planted botany, with tropical greenhouses and the inclusion of large tree specimens, before the revival of the '900 introduced long box hedges and the large water basin of the parterre.

Abbot Farsetti called the architect Paolo Posi from Rome, who designed the majestic palace in Rococo style, adorning it with thirty-eight columns from the Temple of Concord in Rome.

The abbot also had a wonderful garden built, a botanical garden of considerable size and interest, citron orchards, greenhouses, groves, and a maze. On a small hill formed from the excavated material of an oval pond, he erected a small temple that depicted the Roman baths. He then constructed a large earthen embankment (also oval) that he surrounded with a row of yews shaped in an arch to evoke a Roman amphitheater. Nearby, he recreated the remains of the temples of Diana and Jupiter Thunderer.

From all this work, today only the main palace, the guesthouse, two citrus greenhouses, and the stables remain.