Villa Foscari

Coordinates: 45°26′7″N 12°12′4″E / 45.43528°N 12.20111°E / 45.43528; 12.20111
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Villa Foscari
UNESCO World Heritage Site
LocationMira, Province of Venice, Veneto, Italy
Part ofCity of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
CriteriaCultural: (i), (ii)
Reference712bis-021
Inscription1994 (18th Session)
Extensions1996
Area5.87 ha (14.5 acres)
Websitewww.lamalcontenta.com
Coordinates45°26′7″N 12°12′4″E / 45.43528°N 12.20111°E / 45.43528; 12.20111
Villa Foscari is located in Veneto
Villa Foscari
Location of Villa Foscari in Veneto
Villa Foscari is located in Italy
Villa Foscari
Villa Foscari (Italy)
Villa Foscari: facing the Brenta

Villa Foscari is a

Mira, near Venice, northern Italy, designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. It is also known as La Malcontenta ("The Discontented"), a nickname which—according to a legend—it received when the spouse of one of the Foscaris was locked up in the house because she allegedly did not live up to her conjugal duty.[1]

Architecture

Villa Foscari: rear façade
Greenhouse

The villa was commissioned by the brothers Nicolò and Alvise (Luigi) Foscari, members of a patrician Venetian family that produced Francesco Foscari, one of Venice's most noted doges. It was built between 1558 and 1560. It is located beside the Brenta canal and is raised on a pedestal, which is characteristic of Palladio's villas; this pedestal is more massive than most of Palladio's villas (the base is 11 feet (3.4 m) high, more than twice the height Palladio normally used) because it was not possible to construct a subterranean basement on the site.

The villa lacks the agricultural buildings which were an integral part of some of the other Palladian villas. It was used for official receptions, such as that given for Henry III of France in 1574. It has been proposed that the villa was the home of Portia called Belmont in The Merchant of Venice.[2]

Villa Foscari's thermal windows inspired the ones used on the façade of Villa Toeplitz in Varese.

  • Plan, drawn by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1781
    Plan, drawn by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1781
  • Cross section (Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1781)
    Cross section (Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1781)

Interior

The interior of the villa is richly decorated with

Giambattista Zelotti
. Mythological scenes from Ovid alternate with allegories of the Arts and Virtues. As at other Palladian villas, the paintings reflect villa life in, for example, Astraea showing Jove the pleasures of the Earth. The frescoes have dulled over time, signs of the increasing threat that air pollution poses to works of art.

Recent history

The British travel writer

Beverly Hills. In 1965, the English architect Claud Phillimore, 4th Baron Phillimore (1911–1994) inherited the villa from Landsberg. He began restoration, but sold the house in 1973 to count Antonio ("Tonci") Foscari (b. 1938), a descendant of the former owners and professor for architecture and preservation. He and his wife, Barbara del Vicario, undertook a painstaking process of restoring it to its original grandeur. In 2012, Foscari wrote of the villa's renaissance.[6]

Since 1996 the building has been conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".[7] Today, the villa is open to the public for visits on a limited basis.

See also

References

  1. ^ Sakalis, Alex (9 August 2023). "7 Highlights of the Brenta Riviera". Italy Magazine. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  2. ^ Hank Whittemore, Portia's Estate of Belmont. https://hankwhittemore.com/tag/villa-foscari/
  3. ^ The Road to Oxiana, Robert Byron, Pimlico edition, 2004, page 4.
  4. ^ "Chaterine D'Erlanger". lamalcontenta. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  5. ^ A. Foscari Tumulto e ordine, Electa 2013. Tumult and Order. La Malcontenta: 1924-39, Lars Müller Publisher 2012. The hosts were the "protagonists of a peculiar world, where the avant-guards, the lost aristocracies of the whole Europe, the revolutionaries and the dandies shared a considerable sense of freedom".
  6. ISBN 978-3-03778-297-2
    .
  7. ^ Official website
  • Murano, Michelangelo; Paolo Marton (1999). Venetian Villas. Germany:
    ISBN 3-89508-242-2
    .

External links

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