GRICE E CAPODILISTA: TEA AT VILLA EMO

 Wikipedia article Villa Emo is one of the many cre­ations con­ceived by Ital­ian Re­nais­sance ar­chi­tect Andrea Palladio. It is a pa­tri­cian villa lo­cated in the Veneto re­gion of north­ern Italy, near the vil­lage of Fan­zolo di Vedelago, in the Province of Tre­viso. The pa­tron of this villa was Leonardo Emo and re­mained in the hands of the Emo fam­ily until it was sold in 2004. Since 1996, it has been con­served as part of the World Her­itage Site »City of Vi­cenza and the Pal­la­dian Vil­las of the Veneto«.[1]  History Andrea Palladio's ar­chi­tec­tural fame is con­sid­ered to have come from the many vil­las he de­signed. The build­ing of Villa Emo was the cul­mi­na­tion of a long-lasting pro­ject of the pa­tri­cian Emo fam­ily of the Re­pub­lic of Venice to de­velop its es­tates at Fan­zolo. In 1509, which saw the de­feat of Venice in the War of the League of Cam­brai, the es­tate on which the villa was to be built was bought from the Bar­barigo fam­ily.[2] Leonardo di Gio­van­nia Emo was a well-known Venet­ian aris­to­crat. He was born in 1538 and in­her­ited the Fan­zolo es­tate in 1549. This prop­erty was ded­i­cated to the agri­cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties that the fam­ily pros­pered from. The Emo family's cen­tral in­ter­est was at first in the cul­ti­va­tion of their newly ac­quired land. Not until two gen­er­a­tions had passed did Leonardo Emo com­mis­sion Pal­la­dio to build a new villa in Fan­zolo.  Historians un­for­tu­nately do not have firm chronol­ogy of dates on the de­sign, con­struc­tion, or the com­mence­ment of the new build­ing: the years 1555 or 1558 is es­ti­mated to have been when the build­ing was de­signed, while the con­struc­tion was thought to have been un­der­taken be­tween 1558 and 1561. There is no ev­i­dence show­ing that the villa was built by 1549: how­ever, it has been doc­u­mented to have been built by 1561. The 1560s saw the in­te­rior dec­o­ra­tion added and the con­se­cra­tion of the chapel in the west barchesse in 1567.[1] The date of com­ple­tion is put at 1565; a doc­u­ment which at­tests to the mar­riage of Leonardo di Alvise with Cor­nelia Gri­mani has lasted from that year.[3] Par­tial al­ter­ations were made to the Villa Emo in 1744 by Francesco Muttoni. Arches within both wings that were close to the cen­tral build were sealed off and ad­di­tional res­i­den­tial areas were cre­ated. The ceil­ings were al­tered in 1937–1940. The villa and its sur­round­ing es­tate were pur­chased in 2004 by an in­sti­tu­tion and fur­ther restora­tions were made.  Since 1996, it has been con­served as part of the World Her­itage Site »City of Vi­cenza and the Pal­la­dian Vil­las of the Veneto«.[1]  The villa is at the cen­tre of an ex­ten­sive area that bears cen­turi­a­tion, or land di­vi­sions, and ex­tends north­ward. The land­scape of Fan­zolo has a con­tin­u­ous his­tory since Roman times and it has been sug­gested that the lay­out of the villa re­flects the straight lines of the Roman roads.[2]  Architecture Marcok / it.wikipedia.org [CC BY-SA 3.0] The main building (casa dominicale). Villa Emo was a prod­uct of Palladio's later pe­riod of ar­chi­tec­ture. It is one of the most ac­com­plished of the Pal­la­dian Vil­las, show­ing the ben­e­fit of 20 years of Palladio's ex­pe­ri­ence in do­mes­tic ar­chi­tec­ture. It has been praised for the sim­ple math­e­mat­i­cal re­la­tion­ships ex­pressed in its pro­por­tions, both in the el­e­va­tion and the di­men­sions of the rooms. Pal­la­dio used math­e­mat­ics to cre­ate the ideal villa. These «harmonic pro­por­tions» were a for­mu­la­tion of Palladio's de­sign the­ory. He thought that the beauty of ar­chi­tec­ture was not in the use of or­ders and or­na­men­ta­tion, but in ar­chi­tec­ture de­void of or­na­men­ta­tion, which could still be a de­light to the eye if aes­thet­i­cally pleas­ing por­tions were in­cor­po­rated. In 1570, Pal­la­dio pub­lished a plan of the villa in his trea­tise I quat­tro libri dell'architettura. Un­like some of the other plans he in­cluded in this work, the one of Villa Emo cor­re­sponds nearly ex­actly to what was built. His clas­si­cal ar­chi­tec­ture has stood the test of time and de­sign­ers still look to Pal­la­dio for in­spi­ra­tion.[1]    Renato Vecchiato [CC-BY-SA-3.0] Another view of Villa Emo. The layout of the villa and its es­tate is strate­gi­cally placed along the pre-existing Roman grid plan. There is a long rec­tan­gu­lar axis that runs across the es­tate in a north-south di­rec­tion. The agri­cul­tural crop fields and tree groves were laid out and arranged along the long axis, as was the villa it­self.[1]  The outer ap­pear­ance of the Villa Emo is marked by a sim­ple treat­ment of the en­tire body of the build­ing, whose struc­ture is de­ter­mined by a geo­met­ri­cal rhythm. The con­struc­tion con­sists of brick-work with a plas­ter fin­ish, vis­i­ble wooden beams seen in the spaces of the piano no­bile, and coffered ceil­ings like that within the log­gia. The cen­tral struc­ture is an al­most square res­i­den­tial area.[4] The liv­ing quar­ters are raised above ground-level, as are all of Palladio's other vil­las. In­stead of the usual stair­case going up to the main front door, the build­ing has a ramp with a gen­tle slope that is as wide as the pronaos. This re­veals the agri­cul­tural tra­di­tion of this com­plex. The ramp, an in­no­va­tion in the Pal­la­dian vil­las, was nec­es­sary for trans­porta­tion to the gra­naries by wheel­bar­rows loaded with food prod­ucts and other goods. The wide ramp leads up to the loggia which takes the form of a col­umn por­tico crowned by a gable – a tem­ple front which Pal­la­dio ap­plied to sec­u­lar build­ings. As in the case with the Villa Badoer, the log­gia does not stand out from the core of the build­ing as an en­trance hall, but is re­tracted into it. The em­pha­sis of sim­plic­ity ex­tends to the col­umn order of the log­gia, for which Pal­la­dio chose the ex­tremely plain Tuscan order.[2] Plain win­dows em­bell­ish the piano no­bile as well as the attic.  The cen­tral build­ing of the villa is framed by two sym­met­ri­cal long, lower colon­naded wings, or barchesses, which orig­i­nally housed agri­cul­tural fa­cil­i­ties, like gra­naries, cel­lars, and other ser­vice areas. This was a work­ing villa like Villa Ba­doer and a num­ber of the other de­signs by Pal­la­dio. Both wings end with tall dove­cotes which are struc­tures that house nest­ing holes for do­mes­ti­cated pi­geons. An ar­cade on the wings face the gar­den, con­sist­ing of columns that have rec­tan­gu­lar blocks for the bases and capi­tols. The west barchesse also con­tains a chapel. The barchesses merge with the cen­tral res­i­dence, form­ing one ar­chi­tec­tural unit. This ty­po­log­i­cal for­mat of a villa-farm was in­vented by Pal­la­dio and can be found at Villa Bar­baro and Villa Baroer.[1]  Andrea Pal­la­dio em­pha­sises the use­ful­ness of the lay-out in his trea­tise. He points out that the grain stores and work areas could be reached under cover, which was par­tic­u­larly im­por­tant. Also, it was nec­es­sary for the Villa Emo's size to cor­re­spond to the re­turns ob­tained by good man­age­ment. These re­turns must in fact have been con­sid­er­able, for the side-wings of the build­ing are un­usu­ally long, a vis­i­ble sym­bol of pros­per­ity. The Emo fam­ily in­tro­duced the cul­ti­va­tion of maize on their es­tate (and the plant, still new in Eu­rope, is de­picted in one of Zelotti's fres­coes). In con­trast to the tra­di­tional cul­ti­va­tion of mil­let, con­sid­er­ably higher re­turns could be ob­tained from the maize.[5] It is not clear if the long walk, made of large square paving-stones, which leads to the front of the house, served a prac­ti­cal pur­pose. It seems to be a fifteenth-century thresh­ing floor.[6] How­ever, Pal­la­dio ad­vised that thresh­ing should not be car­ried out near a house.  Hans A. Rosbach [CC BY-SA 3.0] Frescoes by Giovanni Battista Zelotti, west wall of the hall Frescoes Hans A. Rosbach [CC BY-SA 3.0] Hall West The ex­te­rior is sim­ple, bare of any dec­o­ra­tion. In con­trast, the in­te­rior is richly dec­o­rated with fres­coes by the Veronese painter Gio­vanni Bat­tista Zelotti, who also worked on Villa Foscari and other Pal­la­dian vil­las. The main se­ries of fres­coes in the villa is grouped in an area with scenes fea­tur­ing Venus, the god­dess of love. Zelotti ap­pears to have com­pleted the work on the fres­coes by 1566.[1]  In the log­gia, the fres­coes have rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Cal­listo, Jupiter, Jupiter in the Guise of Diana, and Cal­isto trans­formed into a Bear by June. The Great Room is filled with fres­coes that were placed be­tween Corinthian columns that rise from high pedestals. The events in the fres­coes con­cen­trate on hu­man­is­tic ideals and Roman his­tory al­lud­ing to mar­i­tal virtues. Ex­em­plary scenes in­clude Virtue por­trayed in a scene from the life of Sci­pio Africanus. On the left wall is the scene of Scio­pio re­turns the girl be­trothed to Al­lu­cius and the right wall a scene show­ing The Killing of Vir­ginia. The sides  of these fres­coes have false niches that con­sist of mono­chrome fig­ures: Jupiter hold­ing a torch, Juno and the Pea­cock, Nep­tune with the Dol­phin, and Cy­bele with the Li­oness. These fig­ures al­lude to the four nat­ural el­e­ments (fire, air, water, earth). Side pan­els con­tain enor­mous pris­on­ers emerg­ing from the false ar­chi­tec­tural frame­work. On the south wall of the great hall to­ward the vestibule is a false bro­ken ped­i­ment that ap­pears above a real en­trance arch. A fresco of two fe­male fig­ures, Pru­dence with the Mir­ror and Peace with an Olive Branch, can be seen. The North wall at the cen­ter of the upper part of the build­ing con­tains the crest of the Emo Fam­ily. It is carved and gilt wood, sur­rounded by trompe-l'œil cor­nices and festoons.[1]  To the left of the cen­tral cham­ber is the Hall of Her­cules. It con­tains episodes re­fer­ring mainly to the mytho­log­i­cal hero. The in­tent was to em­pha­size the vic­tory of virtue and rea­son over vice. The fres­coes are in­serted in a frame­work of false ionic columns. The east wall con­tains scenes of Her­cules em­brac­ing De­janira, Her­cules throw­ing Lica into the sea, and The Fame of Her­cules at the cen­ter. The west wall is Her­cules at the Stake, placed within false arches. On the south wall is a panel above the door­way that de­picts a Noli me Tan­gere («Touch Me Not») scene.[1]  To the right of the cen­tral cham­ber is the Hall of Venus. This hall con­tains episodes that refer to the God­dess of Love. On the west wall within false arches are the scenes of Venus de­ters Ado­nis from Hunt­ing and Venus aids the Wounded Ado­nis. The east wall fresco shows Venus wounded by Love. On the south wall is a panel above the door­way that shows Pen­i­tent St. Jerome.[1]  The Ab­sti­nence of Scipio ap­pears fre­quently in cy­cles of fres­coes for Venet­ian vil­las. For ex­am­ple, the Villa la Porto Colleoni in Thiene and Villa Cordel­lina in Mon­tec­chio Mag­giore, built nearly 200 years later, also use this image, fos­ter­ing ideals which, had in the 15th and 16th cen­turies, re­sulted from the re­newed dis­cus­sion of the de­prav­ity of town life, in con­trast to the tran­quil­ity, abun­dance, and free­dom of artis­tic thought as­so­ci­ated with rural ex­is­tence. Hence, an­other room in the villa is called the Room of the Arts, fea­tur­ing fres­coes with al­le­gories of in­di­vid­ual arts, such as as­tron­omy, po­etry or music.[7]Within the many fres­coes are de­pic­tions of dif­fer­ent flow­ers and fruit, in­clud­ing corn, only re­cently in­tro­duced into the Po Val­ley. Many of the frescoes are pre­sented within false ar­chi­tec­ture, like columns, arches and ar­chi­tec­tural frame­work.[1]  Media Markhole [CC BY-SA 4.0] Perspective view of the front grounds Marcok / it.wikipedia.org [CC BY-SA 3.0] Perspective view of the rear garden. In the 1990s Villa Emo was fea­tured in Guide to His­toric Homes: In Search of Palladio,[8]Bob Vila's three-part six-hour pro­duc­tion for A&E Net­work.  The 2002 movie Ripley's Game used the Villa Emo as a lo­ca­tion.[9]  References ^ a b c d e f g h i j kThe City of Vicenza and The Palladian Villas in the Veneto: A Guide to the UNESCO Site. Italy: The Unesco Office of the Municipality of Vicenza, the Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities. 2009. pp. 186–191. ^ a b c Wundram (1993), p. 164 ^ Wundram (1993), p. 165 ^ Beltramini, Guido (2009). Palladio. Italy. pp. 256–322. ISBN 978-1-905711-24-6. ^ Wundram (1993), p. 169 ^ Andrea Palladio Centre ArchivedJune 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (in English and Italian)Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, accessed September 2008 ^ Wundram (1993), p. 173 ^ BobVila.com. »Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio«. ^ »Ripley's Game News« ArchivedJune 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2008 05 31 Sources The City of Vicena and The Palladian Villas in the Veneto: A Guide to the Unesco Site. Italy: The Unesco Office of the Municipality of the City of Vicenza. 2009. pp. 186–191. Wassell, Stephen R. (Fall 2018). »Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)«. Nexus Network Journal: 213–222. Beltramini, Guido (2008). Palladio. Italy. pp. 100–108, 258–322. ISBN 978-1-905711-24-6. Boucher, Bruce (1998) [1994]. Andrea Palladio: The Architect in his Time (revised ed.). New York: Abbeville Press. Rybczynski, Witold (2002). 'The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio. New York: Scribner. Wundram, Manfred (1993). Andrea Palladio 1508-1580, Architect between the Renaissance and Baroque, Cologne, Taschen.