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 that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...

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 its ...

, a town of the

Province of Vicenza The province of Vicenza (; ) is a province in the Veneto region of 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 are 113 ''comuni'' (municipalities) in th ...

in the

Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...

region of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. 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 on ...

. It is conserved as part of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

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 throughou ...

s, which he had studied during a trip to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. 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, 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 façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

, 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 a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In ancient ...

, stripped classical features, and statues that depict both military and agricultural deities. VillaPoianoFromQuattroLibri.svg, Floor plan from '' I quattro libri dell'architettura'' (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 Bernardino India (1528–1590) was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, born and mainly active in Verona. Life Born in Verona in 1528, his widowed mother married again in 1545 and Bernardino was then entrusted to his maternal grandparent ...

, Anselmo Canera, 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 ...

frames, whose floral designs entwine around ''

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

'' 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, mon ...

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 (; ), also known in English as Pompeii ( ) after the name of the ancient city, is a city and in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy. It contains the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Modern Po ...

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 (, equivalent to the Greek mythology, Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Religion in ancient Rome, Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular thr ...

, is attributed to

Giovanni Battista Zelotti Giovanni Battista Zelotti (; 1526 – 28 August 1578) was an Italians, Italian Painting, 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 mainla ...

. 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'' (: ''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 extende ...

'' 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 The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and several other names, was fought from February 1508 to December 1516 as part of the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, who fough ...

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 Anselmo Canera and grotesques by

)

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