Villa Pojana or Poiana, is a patrician

villa A villa is a type of house that 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 ...

Pojana Maggiore Pojana Maggiore is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, north-eastern Italy. It is the site of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Villa Pojana, designed by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. The town has reputation for ...

, a town of the

Province of Vicenza The Province of Vicenza ( it, Provincia di Vicenza) is a province in the Veneto region in northern Italy. Its capital city is Vicenza. The province has an area of 2,722.53 km², and a total population of 865,082 (as of 2017). There a ...

in the

Veneto Veneto (, ; vec, Vèneto ) or Venetia is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about five million, ranking fourth in Italy. The region's capital is Venice while the biggest city is Verona. Veneto was part of the Roman Empire unt ...

region of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It was designed by the Italian Renaissance architect

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) 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 ...

. It is conserved as part of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site in Italy, which protects buildings by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called " ...

History

The Villa Pojana was built in the years 1548–1549 for Bonifacio Pojana, a member of the Pojana family who had been local landowners for centuries. Bonifacio's military background is expressed on the one hand by the severity and austere purity of the architecture and on the other hand by the decorative programme described below.

Architecture

Palladio's design was inspired by ancient

Roman bath In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers througho ...

s, which he had studied during a trip to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. The main floor is characterized by a large hall with a

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ceiling (see also Villa Pisani in Bagnolo). At each side of the central hall, secondary rooms extend, each with a different type of vault. Villa Pojana remains one of the most curious examples of

Palladian architecture Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

even though the Villa was never completed and some of its latter development strayed from Palladio's original design. Of what was built, Palladio demonstrated some of his most creative work, especially in the building's main feature on the façade, a serliana with five circular holes ( ''oculi''), inspired from ancient Roman models, yet not derivative from any specific source. Other notable elements are the

broken pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedime ...

, stripped classical features, and statues that depict both military and agricultural deities. VillaPoianoFromQuattroLibri.svg, Floor plan from ''

I quattro libri dell'architettura ''I quattro libri dell'architettura'' (''The Four Books of Architecture'') is a treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), written in Italian. It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated wi ...

'' (1570) Villa Pojana_sezione_Bertotti Scamozzi 1778.jpg, Cross section (drawing by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1778)

Decorative details

Villa Pojana photo by Marcok 2009-08-08 n07

Palladio himself documented the interior decorations as being by Bernardino India,

Anselmo Canera Anselmo Canera, or Canneri (active 1522–1584), was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, born and mainly active in Verona. He is noted for his frescoes and his collaborations with other Italian Renaissance artists such as Bernardino India ...

, and Bartolomeo Ridolfi. Canera and India were both painters of the frescos (India of the

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

s), while Ridolfi was a decorator and sculptor, responsible for stuccos and all fireplaces. In the atrium, elegant

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

frames, whose floral designs entwine around ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' reliefs, enclose

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochr ...

s of river gods, while here and there appear patches of sky populated with other deities. The bust of Bonifacio Pojana looks down from over the main entrance, and above him are the family's coat of arms and military trophies. Other decorations depict

Pompei Pompei (; nap, Pumpeje, ) or Pompeii (, as in the name of the ancient city) is a city and commune in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy, home of the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. History ...

an scenes with the backgrounds and landscapes strewn with picturesque ruins and broken columns, whilst monochromatic figures of warriors stand watch in the ''trompe-l'œil'' niches. The frescoed ceiling, with the allegory of

Fortuna Fortuna ( la, Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at ...

, is attributed to

Giovanni Battista Zelotti Giovanni Battista Zelotti (; 1526 – 28 August 1578) was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, active in Venice and her mainland territories. He appears to have been born in Verona, then part of the Venetian mainland, and trained wit ...

. The most significant fresco can be found in the central hall: called the ''Emperors' Salon'' it shows a family from classical times, dressed in tunics and togas. They kneel in front of an altar whilst the ''

pater familias The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his ext ...

'' extinguishes the torch of war at the feet of the statue of ''Peace'' which stands on the altar. It is a clear allusion to the peace painfully achieved in the sixteenth century after the War of the League of Cambrai which allowed Venetians to enjoy the delights of the '' terra firma.''''Venetian Villas'', p. 134. File:Villa Pojana photo by Marcok 2009-08-08 n08.jpg, The atrium ceiling fresco, with the allegory of

attributed to

File:Villa Pojana photo by Marcok 2009-08-08 n06.jpg, The serliana of the atrium, with the family's coat of arms and military trophies. File:Villa Pojana photo by Marcok 2009-08-08 n17.jpg, Decorations on the ceiling of the ''Emperors' Salon'' (frescos by

and grotesques by Bernardino India)

References

{{Authority control Houses completed in 1549 Andrea Palladio buildings Pojana Palladian villas of Veneto 1549 establishments in the Republic of Venice

History

Architecture

Decorative details

See also

References