April 27, 2008 Part 2

Our second and last villa visit for the day was to Villa Foscarini Rossi. This villa is unique in that it has always belonged to just one family, the aristocratic Foscarini of Venice. Patrons of the arts, the family has always associated with literary groups and other artists, from the 16th century to today. Indeed, an elaborate guest house was built to accommodate these artists, and it is currently used to hold business meetings, weddings, etc. The guest house, or Barchessa as it is called, was my favorite building located slightly to the rear of the main villa. You went up steps to this beautiful verandah.




(You can see the remains of wedding decorations with the greenery wrapped around some of the candelabra – wouldn’t this be magnificent alit at night?!) From there you went more steps to the ballroom. I wish we could have taken pictures of it – so beautiful! There were large frescos painted on the end of the walls, the rest was painted in tromp l’oil to look like gothic arches and vaulted ceiling, with another fresco painted in the middle of the ceiling, dated 1652. Windows overlooked the backyard allowing light and nature in. You can see why guests enjoyed coming here!

The main villa is no longer used as a home, but is now a museum that has a collection of designer shoes, by Dior, YSL, Givenchy, Ungaro, etc. These are luxury shoes that represent the quality of shoe that “made in Italy” is known for. The current family owns Rossimoda, which had been producing these designer shoes for over 50 years. The exhibit has shoes from the 1600’s but most are from 1960 onward – an incredible collection. There is also artwork pertaining to shoes scattered about and one room contains a numbers of paintings and sketches by Andy Warhol, who was a personal friend of the family.

When the villa was used as a home, it underwent structural modifications in the 19th century and interior decorations as well. It was during this time that there was an interest in Egypt, and one room was decorated with paintings and furniture showing pyramids, Egyptian deities, etc. In homage to the shoe industry, a couple of rooms contain sketches, shoe forms, sewing machines – all old elements used in production of shoes.

Here is the front of the villa, which was located on the main street of Strà.




On Friday the 26th, it was a holiday in Italy, commemorating the liberation of Italy from the Nazis. There were a lot of wreath laying ceremonies and the park across the street from Foscarini displayed one of the wreaths.

April 27, 2008 Part 1

Last Sunday when we visited the Strà/Dolo area, we had purchased a ticket that allowed us 4 villas with discount purchase. We had only seen one of this group, so decided to return today because these are mostly private villas and only are open on Sundays and sometimes even certain Sundays of the month.

The first villa was called Badoer Fattoretto.




This is a private residence, and we even got to meet the owner and shaked his hand-we even got to meet his two dogs! Badoer was laid out like most of the smaller villas wherein you enter a front door, pass straight through wide doors at the back and rooms are arranged on either side. These are two pictures of the rear of the house, looking through to the front.




The unique thing about this villa is that the father of the current owner had been quite an eclectic collector of antiques, and so there are over 15,000 items housed here in various rooms and out building. These objects are mostly utilitarian and we started with the prettiest display which was in the kitchen. Copper pots, pans, kettles, molds…hung from the walls, the ceiling and on top the tables. There was a beautiful cooking fireplace surrounded by tiles, the table was set for dinner – it looked like a scene from an old period movie. The library had books lying about, all kinds of old papers and documents – too many to peruse even if I could read the Italian. In the attached “garage” there were carriages, all kinds of equipment for blacksmithing, agricultural, housekeeping, children’s toys, baby walkers, potty chairs… as I said, a very eclectic collection. There was even an old dentist chair with the attached strap used to hold the patients head to the back rest. One of the carriages can be seen inside the door of the “garage”. (Notice the equine topiaries).



Here’s another picture of the rear of the villa (notice one of the dog houses in the corner)



The white birds in the previous pictures were doves, which had their own nesting boxes on the garage.




The rest of the property was of good size, with various points of interest scattered about.





Legend has it that at one time, prior to the villa’s construction, monks from nearby had buried treasure on the property for safe keeping. Just to make sure there was no proof to the legend, one of the villa’s former owners began to dig to look for it. He never found it, but ended up with a lovely pond as a result.




Our guide was Francesca, who between her knowledge of English, my pocket dictionary, and educated guesses on our part, managed to do a good job of explaining the history of Villa Badoer Fattoretto. (FYI – I had asked Francesca if she too was a student like last week’s guide. Her answer was that she was done with school, she is a lawyer and is a tour guide because she enjoys it).

April 26, 2008

When David spoke about visiting villas to some of the people at Cimolai, they said there was a villa nearby we ought to visit. So we packed our picnic and drove to Codroipo in the neighboring province of Udine, about a hours drive.

Villa Manin, while not as well-kept as the Villa Pisani, is nevertheless as large in scale and impressive in its own right. In the 16th century a local nobleman, Antonio Manin, constructed this large agricultural estate, a working farm as opposed to the pleasure palaces we’ve seen prior. At this time in history, Venice was developing its mainland to offset its loss of dominion of the sea. Antonio’s grandson, while respecting the agricultural heritage, enlarged the estate to a grand scale while also richly decorating the interior. Indeed, it looks more like a palace than a villa. Perhaps that is why it eventually became Napoleon’s headquarters around 1797.

The front of the villa



The “crescent” with the view facing out from the villa



One half of the crescent



As usual, you were not allowed to take pictures of the interior, which is this case was okay. There was only one room decorated with furnishings, again a bedroom of Napoleon. The rest of the villa is given to art displays. The art on display this period was entitled “God and Goods: Spirituality and Mass Confusion,” which sounds like a pretentious argument against religion. However, different artists used all kinds of mediums, photography, painting, sculpture, mobiles, video, all with their own presentations of how art looks at religion from an outside perspective and how that perspective can be personally interpreted. I have to admit, contemporary art is not my thing, but some of these things were interesting. As an art teacher once said, it is the fact that the work makes an impression on you, or makes you think or talk about it, that makes it art. And this exhibit did just that. By the way, the artists were of all nationalities, not just Italian.

The gardens at Villa Manin were more of a park rather than well tended gardens. Acres were enclosed by brick walls, with statues placed here and there.




Paths deviated through trees and vegetation, with benches placed at regular intervals inviting you to sit and enjoy the peacefulness and birdsong. We also observed some fauna – a male pheasant (too slow on the shutter to get the female).



My favorite picture taken today is definitely of this squirrel.





Don’t you love his tufted ears? Like a dark grey version of Tommy Tiptoes. (For Beatrix Potter fans!) Here another one is backlit, so you can see his white chest.



Along the back of the park’s wall, it seemed a bit more “formal” with this arbor and series and elevated “urns”.



Partway along this wall was an opening that still looks out on a large agricultural area of vineyards and orchards



with mountains in the distance.



We entered the villa by a side street and noticed this unique stone wall




complete with letter box.

April 20, 2008

We left Sunday morning to arrive at Fiesso d’Artico (next to Strά) to attend church services before touring Villa Pisani. This church is not as big as San Giorgio’s, but is still quite beautiful inside. And it’s always neat to hear the bells ringing to call you to mass and as you go out the door.





The local constabulatory giving directions to a tourist.



The police are quite evident here, even helping the school children cross the street at lunchtime near our apartment.

Strά is one of a cluster of towns located on the river Brent, the whole area being called Riveria del Brenta. The villas were built by the rich of Venice who traveled up the river via boat and built “summer homes” along the river. There are a number of villas, two of which we toured today. First are some pictures taken of the river (which to us looked more like a canal).

A bridge that acts as a lock and gate house with a lot of fishermen along the banks



You can take a boat ride from Strά to Venice, very expensive. This is a private “party boat” that was tied up along the commercial boats. These guys were having a good time!



One of the ornate doorways on a building in town.




Villa Pisani wasn’t hard to miss. It took up many city blocks. It is surrounded by a wall on nearly all four sides. To brake the wall into more eye-pleasing space, there are ornate gates every so far. These gates have roads leading back from them, making somewhat of a grid on the interior.




When the villa was built the main mode of transportation was by boat however, and this is the front of the villa where you would disembark.





The villa was originally built by a Venetian family around the 1600’s. Finances forced them to sell in the late 1700’s and the new owner became Napolean Bonaparte. He paid nearly 950000 francs, which I think even at that time sounds like a lot of money. He spent only one or two night there and gifted it to Josephine and her son. It short time it was the son who was the owner. Napolenic/French style “improvements” were made and it is this style that is reflected in the current furnishings. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take interior pictures, so I will attempt to describe.

The house is built in a square around an open courtyard. On the first floor are “statures” flanking a corridor that leads from front to back doors.





With both front and back doors open, it made a nice breeze blowing through. Plus it made for quite a vista, looking out on the “backyard”.



The rooms all have some type of frescoes painted on the ceiling and walls. Most of these are original to the house and depict Grecian or Roman mythical or allegorical scenes. As I said earlier, the furnishing are of the time of Napoleon, with coroneted canopies over the beds, the hangings made of silk.

One of the most memorable rooms was Napoleons’ bathroom. The “tub” was a sunken one, literally a small marble swimming pool, the bottom of which was reached by steps. It looked like if he was on the bottom the water would have surely been over his head. There was also a “potty chair” a rather “modern” element.

As you stood on the back porch, straight ahead was the reflecting pool and what appeared to be a rather large building. This building really fooled the eye because once you got there it was really quite narrow. This building surprisingly was the stable! It was beautifully decorated with stenciled walls. Pretty nice for a barn! There was a sign saying it was under reconstruction, but I am not sure what more needed to be done.






Rather than walking down the stone path to the far building, we opted to walk through the woods on paths winding through wild flowers and ivy, amongst the bird song. There were statues tucked back in here.





I came to this tall mound, under which was a door that you could see lead to a brick lined cellar beneath it. On top of the mound were these “heads” like they were coming out of the ground.
Kind of scary.








Here is a picture looking back at the main house.



Another statue. Note the pattern of stones in front of it.




One of my favorite building was the charming little garden house atop another grotto. It was reached by steps in the back. I through it would be lovely to sit here with a cup of tea, a good book, and look out over this magnificent estate.



A large area was devoted to growing citrus – all in pots. The pots were arranged in parterre pattern. You will also notice the Italians are not grass worshipers – mowing lest it get over one half inch high.




More statures.




At the belvedere, which is currently undergoing restoration, is the meeting place of four arbors, two covered with roses (which weren’t in bloom yet) and two with wisteria (which were – and beautiful)!




Here is a close-up of the stairs going up in the belvedere, which you couldn’t climb because of the restoration.






And now for my favorite – the maze. When I arrived at the gate it was closed. But the sign said it was due to reopen in about 15 minutes. I don’t know whether I have mentioned this before but Italy shuts down in the afternoons, for siesta. Store close, banks close, cafes close – everything for about two hours. Then they reopen, with some staying open til about 8PM, restaurants later. Well, evidently the “maze overseer” also gets a siesta too. So a little after 2:15, this man dressed in blue genes but wearing a smart navy blue sports jacket, very officially marches to the gate, unlocks it and enters the maze. There was a father and daughter waiting plus myself to get in. When the maze keeper didn’t reappear we entered. The father had evidently done this maze before, because he got to the middle with no problems. This maze was terrific – often offering three choices of paths. We met up with a young woman who spoke English and had a nice chat with her as we each tried to find our way. Her boyfriend had gone on ahead and was atop the tower in the middle of the maze looking down and laughing at our wanderings. The girl finally found her way while we were still blundering along. Soon I heard “Mr. Mr.”, look to the tower and it was she directing us to the middle. A good thing as we may still be there. No, no chance of that, because I think that is the maze keepers job – to help the lost and panicked. Here are pictures of the maze with the tower in the middle.








By the way, we had also met an older Italian lady searching her way in with a grandchild, and needing help from her daughter from atop the tower. We needed the daughters help to get back out too!


We had our late afternoon picnic and went to see another villa. This one was a private one, only open on certain Sundays of the season, so we took advantage of the opportunity. We were the only visitors, so had our own private tour. This one was located on the other side of the river, which bordered it on one side and access from the road. Although this was called a villa, Villa Benzi Smania, it was like a large private home by today’s standards. Our guide Paola, spoke some English, and started to tell us about the place. It was built in the 1700’s, changing hands in the 1800’s. The second owner lived in the neighboring house and keep 400 cats and numerous dogs in this villa. (I know what you’re thinking but no, it didn’t smell). After this group was done with it, the next owner needed to do a bit of restoration, although the original frescoes were pretty well intact. There were four of them, each picturing a parable from the Bible. Now as I said earlier, Paola spoke decent English, but telling all this information took a lot of work! I handed her my pocket dictionary, which she used a lot, and we played a game like twenty questions til we got through the tour. It was fun though, and Paola was a good sport. She is studying economics at university and hopes she will be able to get a job when she graduates.


When you entered the villa, you were in a reception area with seating areas to the left, right and ahead of you. There were separate rooms at the far ends, one a kitchen I assume, although we didn’t go there. The other was a library! In restoring the building they uncovered original stenciling on the open joists. Paola took us on a tour of the gardens, which was really a nice big backyard. It also had one of those grotto type structures, which we learned was filled with ice and used for food storage. This villa was really quite homey.

Front view of villa.



Original front of house when river was used for transportation.




Paola explained that the river was rerouted after a flood in the late 1800’s, gaining its owner more land. You can see the original property line where the white stone driveway ends.

Paola



A good day!