Villa Badoer

History

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 “feudal” 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'architettura (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 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 elegant curvilinear barchesse are the only ones that were 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 writes – recalls arms opening to receive the visitor; the relevant antique source was very probably the exedrae 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. Unusual among Palladio's completed works, the wings here do not touch the villa, and they are set slightly in front of it. Vasari thought that they were beautiful, and even fantastic. …

Interiors and decoration

The piano nobile retains its original fresco 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 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 San Stefano. More 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.

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 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 the northern barchesse of the Villa houses the Museo archeologico nazionale di Fratta Polesine (National archaeological museum of Fratta Polesine).