Villa Capodilista

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Originally a hunting lodge built in 1568, this was the brainchild of Dario Varotari, a painter flirting with architecture, a pupil of Veronese who remained faithful to his own métier and covered the rooms in mannerist frescos: scenes from mythology and family history, putti, grotesques and vignettes. In keeping with the open, hilly situation, Varotari designed a severely square building with identical facades: each with two side towers between which extend double-storey loggias. The formal severity produces a delightful contrast with the playfully theatrical loggias, their frescos and their elaborately decorated pediments. The basically square structure of the hedge-lined terrace is also broken up by semicircular extensions, so-called exedra.

The seven castles owned by the Capodilista family at that time are depicted in the Stanza delle Ville. They include the Villa Emo in Fanzolo (between Treviso and Castelfranco). Like the other villas owned by the Emo Capodilista family, it is open to the public.

The hill provides a splendid view - it is reminiscent of Leonardesque backgrounds - across a luxuriant plain, sprinkled with cornfields and vineyards, terracotta-coloured farmhouses and gardens, poplars and cypresses, bordered by the Euganean Hills. These are, so to speak, the local mountains for Padua and for Venice. On a clear day, they can be seen from the Serenissima, some 40 km to the east.