The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

and the dining room has a ceiling fresco glorifying the Valmarana family, but
the chief interest of this villa is as a symbol of the demise of the Venetian
aristocracy.
At STRÀ, virtually on the outskirts of Padua, stands the Villa Pisani or
Nazionale (Tues–Sun: April–Oct 8.30am–7pm; Nov–March 9am–4pm; e5
for house and garden, e2.50 for garden only), an immense country palace
that looks more like a product of the ancien régime than a house for Venetian
gentry. The branch of the Pisani family for whom this place was built was an
astronomically wealthy dynasty of bankers, based in Venice in the similarly
excessive Palazzo Pisani at Santo Stefano. When Alvise Pisani was elected
doge of Venice in 1735, the family celebrated by commissioning the villa from
the Paduan architect Girolamo Frigimelica; later on the work was taken over
by F.M. Preti (see the Castelfranco account, p.362, for more specimens of
his work). By 1760 it was finished – the biggest such residence to be built in
Venetian territory during the century. It has appealed to megalomaniacs ever
since: Napoleon bought it off the Pisani in 1807 and handed it over to Eugène
Beauharnais, his stepson and Viceroy of Italy; and in 1934 it was the place
chosen for the first meeting of Mussolini and Hitler.
The house has been stripped of nearly all its original furnishings, and it’s
as hard to thrill to the eighteenth-century frescoes of smiling nymphs and
smirking satyrs that decorate some of the rooms as to the almost blank walls
elsewhere. Restoration is in progress, and building certainly needs a lot of
work to turn it into something exciting – a sign in one bedroom records
that the king slept here in 1866, and you get the feeling that it has not been
touched since. The one pulse-quickening room is the ballroom, its ceiling
covered with a fresco of The Apotheosis of the Pisani Family, the last major piece
painted by Giambattista Tiepolo before his departure for Spain in 1762, at
the age of 66. It’s a dazzling performance, as full of blue space as it could
possibly be without falling apart. If you’re trying to puzzle out what’s going
on: the Pisani family, accompanied by Venice, are being courted by the Arts,
Sciences and Spirits of Peace, while Fame plays a fanfare in praise of the Pisani
and the Madonna looks on with appropriate pride. The monochrome frescoes
on Roman themes around the musicians’ gallery are by Giambattista’s son,
Giandomenico.
In the grounds, the long fishpond ends in front of a stable block which from
a distance might be mistaken for another grand house. Off to the right (as you
look away from the villa) is a peculiar belvedere, resembling a chapel with its
dome lopped off; and close by there’s an impressive maze – unless a blizzard
is blowing, it’ll be packed with half a dozen coachloads of Italian schoolkids.
The immaculate citrus garden, restored on the basis of years of historical
research, is in stark contrast to the neglect of the house.
Padua
Extensively reconstructed after the damage caused by World War II bombing,
and hemmed in by the sprawl which has accompanied its development into
the most important economic centre of the Veneto, PADUA (Padova) is not
at first sight as alluring as many of the region’s towns. It was, however, one
of the most important cultural centres of northern Italy, and retains plentiful
evidence of its impressive lineage in its churches, museums and frescoed
Padua and the southern veneto
| Padua
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