The Villa Widmann, also called Widmann-Rezzonico-Foscari, is a villa at the shores of the river Brenta located in the small town of Mira, between Venice and Padua.
The present palace was built in the 18th century. A succession of families including the Sceriman, Donà, Foscari, had previously owned the site. The present palace was apparently designed and built in 1719 by Alessandro (?...Andrea) Tirali, a Venetian architect. The Widmanns commissioned the internal frescoes mainly by Giuseppe Angeli, a pupil of Giambattista Piazzetta, and Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, who worked with Tiepolo. The Villa is surrounded by cypress and horse-chestnut trees, and gardens interspersed by several stone statues of gods, nymphs and cupids. A barchessa (a protruding arcade wing usually functioning as storage sheds or stables) and a small church, where Elisabetta and Arianna Widmann are buried, are also part of the Villa's buildings.
In 2011, it became the first of a series of digital heritage virtual tours that covers the most beautiful Venetian villas. The project was designed by Fotografia Virtuale™, a company specialized in high-tech photography and new media based in Venice with several branches in major Italian cities. [1]
Andrea Palladio was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.
The Grand Canal is the largest channel in Venice, Italy, forming one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.
The Brenta is an Italian river that runs from Trentino to the Adriatic Sea just south of the Venetian lagoon in the Veneto region, in the north-east of Italy.
Piano nobile is the architectural term for the principal floor of a palazzo. This floor contains the main reception and bedrooms of the house.
Ca' Foscari, the palace of the Foscari family, is a Gothic building on the waterfront of the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy.
Ca' Rezzonico is a palazzo and art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is a particularly notable example of the 18th century Venetian baroque and rococo architecture and interior decoration, and displays paintings by the leading Venetian painters of the period, including Francesco Guardi and Giambattista Tiepolo. It is a public museum dedicated to 18th-century Venice and one of the 11 venues managed by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
The House of Foscari was an ancient Venetian patrician family, which reached its peak in the 14th–15th centuries, culminating in the dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423–1457).
The Riviera del Brenta is an area of the Metropolitan City of Venice of particular tourist-cultural interest due to the great architectural heritage of the Venetian villas built between the 15th and 18th centuries by the nobles of the Venetian Republic along the river Brenta.
Palazzo Grassi is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele.
The Palladian villas of the Veneto are villas designed by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, all of whose buildings were erected in the Veneto, the mainland region of north-eastern Italy then under the political control of the Venetian Republic. Most villas are listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site named City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Villa Foscari is a villa in Mira, near Venice, northern Italy, designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. The home was constructed by Palladio for two patrician brothers. It was built in the mid 1550s. It is also known as La Malcontenta, a nickname which—according to a legend—it received when the spouse of one of the Foscaris was locked up in the house because she allegedly did not live up to her conjugal duty.
Villa Pisani at Stra refers to the monumental, late-Baroque rural palace located along the Brenta Canal at Via Doge Pisani 7 near the town of Stra, on the mainland of the Veneto, northern Italy. This villa is one of the largest examples of Villa Veneta located in the Riviera del Brenta, the canal linking Venice to Padua. The patrician Pisani family of Venice commissioned a number of villas, also known as Villa Pisani across the Venetian mainland. The villa and gardens now operate as a national museum, and the site sponsors art exhibitions.
Mira is a comune (municipality) in the southern Veneto, northern Italy. It is part of the Metropolitan City of Venice and the 11th most populous comune of Veneto.
Villa Contarini is a mostly Baroque-style, patrician rural palace in Piazzola sul Brenta, province of Padova, in the region of the Veneto of northern Italy. The villa is spread over a 40 hectare area, with canals, and a lake. Now owned by the government of the region of Veneto, and administered through the Fondazione G. E. Ghirardi, the villa and gardens are available for touring as well as for sponsored cultural events.
Andrea Tirali was an Italian architect working in Venice and the Veneto. He was responsible for the intricate design of the pavement in the Piazza San Marco in Venice.
Palazzo Belloni Battagia is a palace on the Canal Grande, Venice, northern Italy. It is located in the sestiere (district) of Santa Croce, between the Fondaco del Megio and Ca' Tron, near the church of San Stae.
Venetian Renaissance architecture began rather later than in Florence, not really before the 1480s, and throughout the period mostly relied on architects imported from elsewhere in Italy. The city was very rich during the period, and prone to fires, so there was a large amount of building going on most of the time, and at least the facades of Venetian buildings were often particularly luxuriantly ornamented.
The Palazzo Pisani Gritti is a Venetian Gothic palazzo located on the north side of the Grand Canal, opposite the Church of the Salute, between the Campo del Traghetto and the Rio de l'Alboro, in the Sestieri of San Marco, Venice, Italy. It was the residence of Doge Andrea Gritti in the 16th century. It is now the Gritti Palace Hotel.
The Palazzo Fontana Rezzonico is a palace located on the Canal Grande of Venice, between the Rio di San Felice and Palazzo Miani Coletti Giusti in the Sestiere of Cannaregio, Venice, Italy.
The Venetian patriciate was one of the three social bodies into which the society of the Republic of Venice was divided, together with citizens and foreigners. Patrizio was the noble title of the members of the aristocracy ruling the city of Venice and the Republic. The title was abbreviated, in front of the name, by the initials N.H., together with the feminine variant N.D.. Holding the title of a Venetian patrician was a great honour and many European kings and princes, as well as foreign noble families, are known to have asked for and obtained the prestigious title.