Photo: Hans A. Rosbach, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
Historic villa / palace
Villa Saraceno
Villa in Agugliaro, Vicenza, Italy
At a glance
- Style
- Palladian architecture
- Architect
- Andrea Palladio
- Area
- 5,900 m²
- Protection
- Part of UNESCO World Heritage Site
- UNESCO World Heritage
- City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto
- Coordinates
- 45°18′45″ N, 11°33′59″ E
History and description
Villa Saraceno is a Palladian Villa in Agugliaro, Province of Vicenza, northern Italy. It was commissioned by the patrician Saraceno family.
History
Villa Saraceno has been dated to the 1540s, which makes it one of Andrea Palladio's earlier works. In 1570, the building was illustrated in an imagined state in its architect's influential book I quattro libri dell'architettura.
However, the villa had been constructed in a more modest form, and existing farm buildings were retained rather than being replaced by the architect's "trade-mark" wings. The reasons for the divergence between the published plan and the actual building are not entirely clear, but it is not the only one of Palladio's villas to be different from the published plan. The incomplete Villa Trissino (Meledo di Sarego) is another example.
Architecture
Villa Saraceno is one of Palladio's simpler creations. Like most of Palladio's villas it combines living space for its upper-class owners with space for uses related to agriculture. Above the piano nobile is a floor which was designed as a granary.
As it stands today, the villa has a nineteenth-century wing which links it to a fifteenth-century building.
Restoration and current use of the villa
The villa fell into a poor state of repair in the twentieth century but retained some of its original frescoes. It was acquired in 1989 by the British charity the Landmark Trust. By 1994 the Trust had completed its restoration, converting the property, which includes adjacent farm-buildings not by Palladio, into a holiday home sleeping up to 16 people. The many people who have since stayed in the villa include Witold Rybczynski, who used it as a base when researching his book on Palladio.
The restoration has been praised for its sensitivity, and since 1996 the villa has enjoyed an additional level of protection, being conserved as one of the buildings which make up the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto". The principal rooms of the villa are open to the public on a limited basis, but the Trust attracted some criticism in the past for not promoting the building as part of the World Heritage Site. In 2008, the Landmark Trust celebrated the 500th anniversary of Palladio's birth with a new guidebook for the Villa Saraceno in English and Italian and extended opportunities for visiting.
Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Full article: «Villa Saraceno».
People
Events and people from Wikidata (CC0).
Photos
Getting there
SalettoTrain, nearest
10.3 km as the crow flies
Villa Saraceno
Distances are as the crow flies, not walking or driving.
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Nearby
See on the mapMore historic villas and palaces in Veneto
- Free 1st Sunday
- UNESCO
- UNESCO
- Free 1st Sunday
- UNESCO
Frequently asked questions
Where is Villa Saraceno?
Villa Saraceno is in Agugliaro, in the province of Vicenza (Veneto), Italy. GPS coordinates: 45.31250, 11.56639.
What else is there to see near Villa Saraceno?
Nearby you’ll find: Villa Saraceno Bettanin (600 m away), Villa Dal Verme (Agugliaro) (2.1 km away), Villa Barbarigo (3.2 km away).
Sources and licences
Text. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Data. Wikidata (CC0); opening hours and contacts OpenStreetMap (ODbL).
Photos. Wikimedia Commons, author and licence on every image.
Credits for the 4 photos
- VillaSaraCeno2007 07 11 1 — Hans A. Rosbach, CC BY-SA 2.5
- Villa Saraceno Finale di Agugliaro - Giornate FAI primavera 2017 - 1 — Marcok - it.wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0
- City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto-112666 — Francesco Bandarin, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo
- VillaSaraCeno2007 07 11 2 — Hans A. Rosbach, CC BY-SA 2.5
Updated 28 October 2026. All sources and licences