Villa Badoer
Encyclopedia
Villa Badoer is a villa
in Fratta Polesine
in the Veneto
region of northern Italy
. It was designed in 1556 by Andrea Palladio
for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, and built between 1557 and 1563, on the site of a medieval castle
which guarded a bridge across a navigable canal. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment
in the facade
of a villa.
Villa Badoer has been part since 1996 of the UNESCO
World Heritage Site
"City of Vicenza
and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
".
The building is open to the public and one of the wings houses the National archeological museum of Fratta Polesine, opened in 2009.
In 1554, on the southern border of the Venetian Republic’s territories, in the flat and foggy country of Polesine
, Palladio designed a villa for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, intended to become the epicentre of the vast agricultural estate of almost five hundred fields that he had inherited six years previously.
Constructed and inhabited in 1556, the villa therefore functioned for the management of the fields and was simultaneously a visible sign of the “feud
al” presence, so to speak, of Badoer in the territory: it is not coincidental that the building rises on the site of an ancient medieval castle. Palladio succeeded in uniting within one effective synthesis these dual meanings, joining the majestic manor house to the two barchesse (farm wings) bent into semicircles, which screen the stables and other agricultural annexes.
(1570).
Probably as a result of exploiting the substructures of the medieval castle, the manor house of the villa rises on a high basement
, and recalls illustrious precedents like the Villa Medici
at Poggio a Caiano
by Giuliano da Sangallo
, and the not far distant Villa dei Vescovi at Luvigliano by Giovanni Maria Falconetto
. Building on the old foundations saved money, and gave a slightly raised setting to the building. This manoeuvre rendered necessary a scenographic staircase of several flights leading to the front door of the villa, the main descending to the courtyard and the two lateral ones connecting with the gable-ends of the barchesse. Thus, the ensemble recalls the structures of an antique, terraced temple
complex.
The very elegant curvilinear barchesse are the only ones that were actually realised by Palladio from the many projected (for example, those for the Villa Mocenigo on the Brenta, the Villa Thiene at Cicogna or the Villa Trissino at Meledo) and their shape — as Palladio himself writes — recalls arms opening to receive the visitor: the relevant antique source was very probably the exedra
e of the Temple of Augustus
in Rome
. These originally housed agricultural activities, for this was a working villa, like Villa Emo
and most of the villas by Palladio. Unusually among Palladio's completed works, the wings here do not actually touch the villa, and they are set slightly in front of it. Vasari thought that they were beautiful, and even fantastic.
On the barchesse Palladio used the Tuscan order
, appropriate to their utilitarian function and for the opportunity they afforded of realising very broad intercolumniations which would not impede carriage access. Instead, the villa’s loggia
displays an elegant Ionic order
, to emphasise its residential, manorial status. The visual focus of the entire complex was centred precisely on the dominant axis of the great triangular pediment
supported by Ionic columns, which bears the family arms, such that the villa’s flanks and rear are absolutely unarticulated and present a simply utilitarian aspect. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment in the facade
of a villa.
Moreover, the distributive structure of the manorial house reveals Palladio’s usual organisation into a vertical axis, with service rooms occupying the basement storey, the patron’s habitation on the piano nobile
and a granary
in the attic
.
The plan and elevation of Villa Badoer presented in Palladio's woodcuts in the Quattro Libri
of 1570 is somewhat different from what was really built there. A rear elevation and portico shown in the book were never built, but whether interrupted and not resumed, or curtailed in the course of construction are not known. Puppi suggested "that the omission of the ceremonial features from the back façade had been decided by the patron, who must have thought them unnecessary in confrontation with the empty expanse of open countryside, and with the short extent of his property... on that side."
decoration. All the rooms are covered by flat ceilings and on the walls a certain "Giallo Fiorentino" designed complex combinations of allegorical figures, whose significance remains partially obscure.
Palladio himself referred to these frescoes as being "grottesche
di bellissima inventione" by a certain Giallo Fiorentino, whose real identity has remained uncertain. Milanesi's identification as Jacopo Giallo, a Florentine illuminator to whom some manuscript work has been assigned, was eliminated by Lionello Puppi's archival discovery that Jacopo Giallo was dead by 1545, thirteen years before the villa was built; Puppi offered instead a certain fresco painter "Giallo Fiorentino", an assistant to Giuseppe Salviati for exterior frescoes at Palazzo Loredan at S. Stefano. Recently Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi has been suggested.
Architectural critics such as Witold Rybczynski
think that the interior is relatively small and unimpressive, compared to the grandiose exterior.
In 1996 UNESCO
designated Villa Badoer as part of the World Heritage Site
"City of Vicenza
and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
".
The building is open to the public. Since 21 February 2009 in the northern barchesse of the Villa is housed the National archeological museum of Fratta Polesine (Museo archeologico nazionale di Fratta Polesine).
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
in Fratta Polesine
Fratta Polesine
Fratta Polesine is a comune in the Province of Rovigo in the Italian region Veneto, located about 70 km southwest of Venice and about 11 km southwest of Rovigo...
in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
region of northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. It was designed in 1556 by Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, and built between 1557 and 1563, on the site of a medieval castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
which guarded a bridge across a navigable canal. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
in the facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
of a villa.
Villa Badoer has been part since 1996 of the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
"City of Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
Palladian Villas of the Veneto
The City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site protecting a cluster of works by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called "Vicenza, City of Palladio" and only buildings in the...
".
The building is open to the public and one of the wings houses the National archeological museum of Fratta Polesine, opened in 2009.
History
Polesine
Polesine is a geographic and historic area in the north-east of Italy corresponding nowadays with the province of Rovigo; it is a strip of land about 100-km long and 18-km wide located between the lower courses of the Adige and the Po rivers.- Geography :...
, Palladio designed a villa for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, intended to become the epicentre of the vast agricultural estate of almost five hundred fields that he had inherited six years previously.
Constructed and inhabited in 1556, the villa therefore functioned for the management of the fields and was simultaneously a visible sign of the “feud
Feud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
al” presence, so to speak, of Badoer in the territory: it is not coincidental that the building rises on the site of an ancient medieval castle. Palladio succeeded in uniting within one effective synthesis these dual meanings, joining the majestic manor house to the two barchesse (farm wings) bent into semicircles, which screen the stables and other agricultural annexes.
The project by Palladio
There are no surviving drawings by Palladio relating to Villa Badoer, nor any building accounts, except those published by the architect in his I quattro libri dell'architetturaI Quattro Libri dell'Architettura
I quattro libri dell'architettura is an Italian treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio . It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated with woodcuts after the author's own drawings. It has been reprinted and translated many times...
(1570).
Probably as a result of exploiting the substructures of the medieval castle, the manor house of the villa rises on a high basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
, and recalls illustrious precedents like the Villa Medici
Villa Medici
The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French...
at Poggio a Caiano
Poggio a Caiano
Poggio a Caiano is a town and comune in the Province of Prato, Tuscany region Italy. The town lies 9 km south of the provincial capital of Prato.-The Medici villa:...
by Giuliano da Sangallo
Giuliano da Sangallo
Giuliano da Sangallo was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance.He was born in Florence. His father Francesco Giamberti was a woodworker and architect, much employed by Cosimo de Medici, and his brother Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and nephew...
, and the not far distant Villa dei Vescovi at Luvigliano by Giovanni Maria Falconetto
Giovanni Maria Falconetto
Giovanni Maria Falconetto was an Italian architect and artist. He designed the first fully Renaissance building in Padua, the Loggia Cornaro, a garden loggia for Alvise Cornaro built as a Roman doric arcade...
. Building on the old foundations saved money, and gave a slightly raised setting to the building. This manoeuvre rendered necessary a scenographic staircase of several flights leading to the front door of the villa, the main descending to the courtyard and the two lateral ones connecting with the gable-ends of the barchesse. Thus, the ensemble recalls the structures of an antique, terraced temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
complex.
The very elegant curvilinear barchesse are the only ones that were actually realised by Palladio from the many projected (for example, those for the Villa Mocenigo on the Brenta, the Villa Thiene at Cicogna or the Villa Trissino at Meledo) and their shape — as Palladio himself writes — recalls arms opening to receive the visitor: the relevant antique source was very probably the exedra
Exedra
In architecture, an exedra is a semicircular recess or plinth, often crowned by a semi-dome, which is sometimes set into a building's facade. The original Greek sense was applied to a room that opened onto a stoa, ringed with curved high-backed stone benches, a suitable place for a philosophical...
e of the Temple of Augustus
Temple of Augustus
Numerous temples of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, were built in the territories of the Roman Empire; sixteen are known in Italia alone. They included the following:* Temple of Divus Augustus, Rome - the principal temple of the Augustan imperial cult...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. These originally housed agricultural activities, for this was a working villa, like Villa Emo
Villa Emo
Villa Emo is a patrician villa in the Veneto, northern Italy, near the village of Fanzolo di Vedelago. It was designed by Andrea Palladio in 1559 for the Emo family of Venice and remained in the hands of the Emo family until it was sold in 2004...
and most of the villas by Palladio. Unusually among Palladio's completed works, the wings here do not actually touch the villa, and they are set slightly in front of it. Vasari thought that they were beautiful, and even fantastic.
On the barchesse Palladio used the Tuscan order
Tuscan order
Among canon of classical orders of classical architecture, the Tuscan order's place is due to the influence of the Italian Sebastiano Serlio, who meticulously described the five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of Regole generalii di...
, appropriate to their utilitarian function and for the opportunity they afforded of realising very broad intercolumniations which would not impede carriage access. Instead, the villa’s loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
displays an elegant Ionic order
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
, to emphasise its residential, manorial status. The visual focus of the entire complex was centred precisely on the dominant axis of the great triangular pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
supported by Ionic columns, which bears the family arms, such that the villa’s flanks and rear are absolutely unarticulated and present a simply utilitarian aspect. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment in the facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
of a villa.
Moreover, the distributive structure of the manorial house reveals Palladio’s usual organisation into a vertical axis, with service rooms occupying the basement storey, the patron’s habitation on the piano nobile
Piano nobile
The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...
and a granary
Granary
A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals.-Early origins:From ancient times grain...
in the attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
.
The plan and elevation of Villa Badoer presented in Palladio's woodcuts in the Quattro Libri
I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura
I quattro libri dell'architettura is an Italian treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio . It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated with woodcuts after the author's own drawings. It has been reprinted and translated many times...
of 1570 is somewhat different from what was really built there. A rear elevation and portico shown in the book were never built, but whether interrupted and not resumed, or curtailed in the course of construction are not known. Puppi suggested "that the omission of the ceremonial features from the back façade had been decided by the patron, who must have thought them unnecessary in confrontation with the empty expanse of open countryside, and with the short extent of his property... on that side."
Interiors and decoration
The piano nobile retains its original frescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
decoration. All the rooms are covered by flat ceilings and on the walls a certain "Giallo Fiorentino" designed complex combinations of allegorical figures, whose significance remains partially obscure.
Palladio himself referred to these frescoes as being "grottesche
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
di bellissima inventione" by a certain Giallo Fiorentino, whose real identity has remained uncertain. Milanesi's identification as Jacopo Giallo, a Florentine illuminator to whom some manuscript work has been assigned, was eliminated by Lionello Puppi's archival discovery that Jacopo Giallo was dead by 1545, thirteen years before the villa was built; Puppi offered instead a certain fresco painter "Giallo Fiorentino", an assistant to Giuseppe Salviati for exterior frescoes at Palazzo Loredan at S. Stefano. Recently Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi has been suggested.
Architectural critics such as Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski , is a Canadian-American architect, professor and writer.Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola High School , located on Sherbrooke street, in Montreal-Ouest...
think that the interior is relatively small and unimpressive, compared to the grandiose exterior.
Conservation
The building passed to the public in the 1960s (initially to the Ville Venete Institute, then to the Province of Rovigo) and was completely restored.In 1996 UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
designated Villa Badoer as part of the World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
"City of Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
Palladian Villas of the Veneto
The City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site protecting a cluster of works by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called "Vicenza, City of Palladio" and only buildings in the...
".
The building is open to the public. Since 21 February 2009 in the northern barchesse of the Villa is housed the National archeological museum of Fratta Polesine (Museo archeologico nazionale di Fratta Polesine).