Villa Molin

Coordinates: 45°21′44″N 11°50′23″E / 45.3623°N 11.8397°E / 45.3623; 11.8397
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Villa Molin.

Villa Molin is a patrician residence in the neighborhood of Mandria, in

Padua, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was designed for Nicolò Molin, a Venetian noble,[1] by Vincenzo Scamozzi and completed in 1597. It faces Mandriola, on the opposite side of the Canale di Battaglia. The original agricultural setting of the villa, composed of pasture and orchards, has given way to a residential dormitory community
of Padua.

History

Original image description from the Deutsche FotothekArchitektur & Profanbau & Villa & Grundriss

The plot of land, comprising fifty-two fields lying between Mandria and Abano Terme, was in the possession of Donna Elena, widow of Vincenzo Molin, in 1582. When Nicolò wished to erect there a villa for summer use that would be suited to the family's standing, it was natural to turn to Scamozzi, first among Venetian architects in the terraferma since the death of Palladio in 1580.

The villa was rapidly completed but not long enjoyed by its patron, who died on 9 May 1608. Seven years later his brothers conveyed the villa to Pio Capodilista; it passed to his son Annibale, then to the heirs of Annibale's sister Sigismonda. Alienated from the

Conti family in 1768–72, its return was the signal for a thorough-going restoration of its interiors in the hands of Antonio, which gave to the smaller rooms the Rococo stucco decorations of their vaulted ceilings. Passing through heiresses in the nineteenth century, the villa's lands were subdivided and it was eventually reduced to a farmhouse before being rehabilitated by a sympathetic new owner, Michele Dondi dall' Orologio. He provided the villa with its grand exterior staircase to the piano nobile
and planted the surrounding parkland with specimen trees, now at full maturity.

During

Austrian-Italian Armistice of Villa Giusti
on 11 March 1918. In 1955, Villa Molin was restored again by the industrialist Igino Kofler, who replanted the formal Italian walled gardens with boxwood-edged beds.

Building

The

Villa Rotonda[2] or the Villa Foscari
(called "La Malcontenta"). The solid sides of the portico are pierced by grand arch-headed openings to provide additional cross-draft in summer heat.

The villa's other façades are simply treated and harmoniously symmetrical, with central

Greek cross. The vestibules give onto more intimate spaces, in a series of cubes, double cubes and "golden mean" rectangles characteristic of cinquecento villa floor plans.[3]

Notes

  1. James I of England. His official correspondence with the Serenissima, in the Calendar of state papers relating to English affairs in the archives of Venice
    , have long been mined by historians.
  2. ^ Scamozzi was responsible for the completion of the Villa after Palladio's death, and designed the low central dome modelled on that of the Pantheon with a central oculus
  3. ^ See Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, The Warburg Institute, London, 1949.

References

  • Bové, Valeria (1999). Ville Venete (in Italian). Venice: Arsenale.
    ISBN 88-7743-200-4
    .

External links

45°21′44″N 11°50′23″E / 45.3623°N 11.8397°E / 45.3623; 11.8397

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