A Forgotten Palladio Villa

When our Book-Reading group proposed a guided tour of the recently rennovated Villa Forni-Cerato, I was immediately interested because it is one of the Palladio-buildings. Andrea Palladio was one of the best-known medieval Italian architects who had spear-headed the Italian architectural rennaisance in the 16th century. His buildings have inspired architects across the world (for example, the White House in USA was inspired by his Villa Rotonda in Vicenza).

In 1996, UNESCO recognised the Palladio villas as World Heritage sites. There are 24 villas designed by Palladio and the Veneto region in the north-east of Italy, where I live, hosts 16 of them. Villa Forni-Cerati is one of those 16 villas. The city of Vicenza has some of the famous Palladio buildings including the Basilica and the amazing Olympic theatre.

On saturday 6th April 2024, we visited this villa, which is located in Montecchio Precalcino, a 25 minutes drive from Schio (VI) in north-east of Italy. This post is about this beautiful building, its history and architecture.

Why Was Villa Forni Cerato Built?

Villa Forni-Cerato was built in 1565 in Montecchio Precalcino for Girolamo Forni, a timber merchant, originally from Valdastico. It is a mostly rural area, about 20 kms from Vicenza.

Forni was working with Andrea Palladio, supplying the timber for his constructions. Wood-logs from places like Tonezza e Alto Piano of Asiago were used for many of the Palladio buildings including the scaffoldings of the Basilica in Vicenza.

The timber was brought down along the Astico river, which was prone to flooding and thus different dams were built along its course to control the water-flow. Dams became collection-points for the wood-logs brought down by the river. One of the dams was in Montecchio Precalcino where Forni lived and where he had his timber-yard. Thus, from supplying all the timber to Palladio, Girolamo Forni became rich and then he asked Palladio to design a simple villa for him, which was built next to his old house.

Design of Villa Forni-Cerato (VFC)

VFC is a simple villa without flashy adornments and yet, it is like a little jewel for its symmetrical and proportionate design. It was been designed as a cube containing 27 square modules, each side of which is 57.8 cm long, and the whole building can be visualised as a Rubik's cube.

 

The stairs (not the original ones) lead to a loggia on the middle floor of the Villa, with open windows on the two sides, which leads to a central hall with two rooms on the sides and one narrower space between the two, which has the stairs.

Built on three levels, the ground floor had the servants' quarters and the kitchen; the middle floor (the noble floor) was the living areas of the Forni family; and, above, the attic held the granary and stores. The rooms are in 9 modules and each has walls 5.20 metres high, creating huge airy spaces.

Golden Ratio Used in VFC  

When VFC was built, the "Vicentine-foot" measurement (35.7 cm) was used as the measuring tool. Multiplying 35.7 by the Golden-ratio number (1.6180) leads to 57.8 cm, which is the size of cube-sides used for designing and constructing the villa. This might explain why the proportions of this building are so eye-pleasing.

Golden ratio, also known as Divine Proportion (Fibonacci sequence), is very common in nature such as in "human face, flower petals, shells, and the geometrical form of galaxies". It is supposed to produce "a sense of beauty, one of the four human intangibles besides purpose, happiness, and love". (1)

A tile has also been found in the house with an image of "Flower of Life", made from 7 overlapping circles. Both these factors might indicate links of Palladio and/or Forni with groups such as Freemasons or Illuminati during the enlightenment era. (2,3)

Present History

Girolomo Forni didn't have children and after his death, the building went to his sister's Cerato family. Since then the house changed through many owners and was occupied till 1971. The last family living here was Grendene with 10 children. They lived on the ground floor while the middle floor was partially used as a barn to stock hay (the middle floor with high walls and no central heating, would have been too cold for living, especially in winter). Since then the building was abandoned. Finally the building was put up for auction in 2017.

After the first 2 auctions went without a buyer, it was bought by a local entrepreneur from Vicenza, Mr Ivo Boscardin. Ivo explained that he saw an annoucement in the newspaper about the villa-auction and read that no one wanted to buy it, while as a Palladio villa it merited greater recognition. He felt that it represented an important cultural icon for their local history and wanted to safeguard it. Initially, he was hoping to buy it with other partners but in the end, everyone else backed out and so he became its sole owner.

He has created a foundation (Villa Forni-Cerati Foundation) to rennovate and look after this building as he feels that it has an important cultural value for the society and should be properly looked after. 

The Villa Forni-Cerato Foundation needs support and you can make donations for its rennovation by making a bank transfer to the Foundation bank-account (account IBAN code: IT 27D02008 60530 000105470617 - for more details check their website).

Rennovation of Villa Forni-Cerato

During our visit, architect Ms. Francesca Grandi took us around and explained with great passion about the rennovation work and the plans of the building. While the whole building can be visited, so far the upper two floors have been rennovated and the work is on-going. Their aim is to maintain the building as it was, without making any structural changes (such as bringing piped water or electric current or central heating inside the main building).

Another aim is to preserve, as much as possible, the old historical layers, histories, materials and structures of the building. Listening to Francesca talk about conservation of the different layers, highlighted the complex nature of this work and the continuos decisions it requires. For example, if a window in the original Palladio design was subsequently closed with bricks, they need to decide if they should preserve the walled window or restore the original layout?

Over the past few decades, new technologies such as archaeological studies for dating the wood (dendrography) and thermo-luminiscence studies can help in identifying the building materials used for construction in different epochs, including the wood-beams used during Palladio's time. All these technologies are also being used during the rennovation to help understand what changed and when.

Along the centuries and especially during its period of abandonment, some of the old busts and sculptures (for example, the stucco-sculptures and works by Alessandro Vittoria) used in this building were sold or lost. The VFC team has been fortunate to find a bust of Girolamo Forni which had been safe-guarded for 50 years by the neighbours.

Girolamo Forni as an Artist

While Girolamo Forni was a timber merchant, he also loved art and the ideas of humanism. He was also a painter, not for selling his art, but for his passion. Some of his paintings are scattered across the world including in the MET in NY and Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza. The room, he had used as his studio in VFC, has copies of some of his paintings (in the image below).

One of the sculputures in the Olympic Theatre of Vicenza also carries the name of Girolamo Forni - it shows a bearded man pushing a trunk of wood on the river.

Conclusions

The visit to Villa Forni-Cerati in Montecchio Montalcini was immensely satisfying mainly because of the passionate explainations of our guide, architect Francesca Grandi. The visit was supposed to last one and half hour, it lasted almost 3 hours and still, our group had so many questions to her about the history and rennovation of the building.

I think that Mr Boscardin has been wonderful in investing his money and passion in saving this beautiful building and creating the foundation to ensure its future. I hope that people will contribute to the Villa Forni-Cerato Foundation so that this work can be continued and completed.

References

1. Emund Stefan, Soul and the Golden Proportion, (https://inspirationandenlightenment.com/the-soul-and-the-golden-proportion/ )

2. The Designs of Andrea Palladio for Villa Forni Cerato (https://www.villafornicerato.it/quaderni-di-ricerca/)

3. A study of the harmony of the modules of Villa Forni Cerato (https://www.villafornicerato.it/quaderni-di-ricerca/)

Unusual Vicenza: Discovering the Magic

Venice does not need an introduction. Many tourists visiting Venice have also heard of Verona. However, very few persons visiting Venice and Verona know of Padova and Vicenza.

Vicenza is counted among the 4 beautiful cities in the Veneto region in north-east of Italy along with Venice, Padova and Verona. Each of these cities is a concentration of history, art and culture. At the same time, each of these cities is distinctive - Venice is the city of canals, Padova is the oldest European university and the city of the saints (St Anthony and St Justine), Verona is the city of Romeo and Juliet, while Vicenza is the city of the architect Andrea Palladio and is a World Heritage city for UNESCO.

This post is an introduction to Vicenza, which has a large number of buildings designed by Andrea Palladio, one of the most influential architects of recent history. For example, his little gem, Villa Rontonda (in the image above), has inspired many patrician houses around the world including the White House.

This post is also about unusual ways for discovering the city's magic, seen through my eyes of nostalgia and through the eyes of Chiara Pesavento, who is passionate about languages, history and culture of this city.

Vicenza of My Memories

I had come to Vicenza in 1979 and stayed for a period at the guesthouse of the Filippini Church along the city's central street called Corso Palladio. Listening from my room on the second floor to the concerts of organ music held in the church below, is one of my first memories of this city and of Italy. At that time I was not very familiar with the western classical music and I remember my shock when it had happened for the first time - I felt surrounded by the warm pulsating embrace of the music as it had filled my room, it was absolutely amazing. Probably the particular acoustics of that building had something to do with that experience.

"Ai Filippini" was a 2 minutes walk from the city's central square, Piazza dei Signori (Lords' Square), where I remember spending hours on the weakends, admiring the absolutely amazing Loggia del Capitanio and the imposing Basilica with its green domed roof. Both these buildings were the works of Andrea Palladio, though at that time I had no idea about who he was!

I loved sketching in those days and that had helped me to become familiar with different landmarks of the city including the incredible Olympic theatre, Chiericati Palace Museum, Montanari Palace and 2 wonderfully landscaped parks - Querini park and Salvi park. Another of my favourites memories is that of the climb to the Monte Berico church at the top of the hill overlooking the city. The image (above) presents one of my sketches of the Piazza dei Signori from those days.

When I look back, I feel that I was fortunate to have the introduction to the historical and cultural treasures of Italy through the unassuming and lesser-known Vicenza. Most tourists to Italy know of Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice and Pompei. A few more discerning ones know about Bologna, Naples, Verona or 5 Terre. Relatively few think of visiting Padova or Vicenza. Knowing Italy through Vicenza has taught me about the joys of visiting smaller and relatively lesser known Italian towns to discover their hidden gems of history, art and culture.

Today, I live in Schio, a tiny town situated 20 km from Vicenza. Even Schio and many other smaller towns of the province of Vicenza, such as Thiene, Bassano del Grappa and Marostica, have so many historical, artistic and cultural sites to discover, that would be impossible to find in any other country! Anyway, enough about my memories of Vicenza - let me now give you a brief glimpse of the town through the eyes of Chiara Pesavento, who is more qualified to talk about it.

About Chiara Pesavento

Chiara Pesavento is a tourist guide in Vicenza, active in this role since 2006. Her decision to become a tourist guide can be traced to a visit to an art collection in Chiericati Palace Museum as a child, when she was struck by the description of a painting by the guide. "Suddenly that uninteresting piece of art acquired details and a depth of meaning" she explains, "and I knew that I wanted to be a tourist guide."

She also had a passion for learning languages (she speaks Spanish, French and English) and loves meeting persons from different countries. All these skills combined to create a person who is passionate about the history, art and culture of her town, and she loves to share these passions with people who come to visit Vicenza. For this post, I asked her to talk about some special thematic tours, which help in discovering lesser-known aspects of this city.

Unusual Vicenza

One of Chiara's favourite tours of Vicenza is called "The lost treasures". For this tour, she uses old city maps from '700 to visit and understand how the city has changed over the past centuries. It means going around to see buildings that are not there anymore and to hear about the history of what had happened and how the city had changed. This also helps in understanding the old toponomies of the town. For example, there were about 50 churches in Vicenza in late medieval period, out of which only 17 are still there today, while the remaining are lost. Many of these were lost during the occupation of the city by Napoleon Bonaparte. This tour lets you understand the impact of that occupation.

Another tour of the city is through its art collections. The art collection at Chiericati palace museum, the collection of 18th century Venetian art at Montanari palace, the sacred-art collection at the Diocesan museum and the different art works in the city churches - if you love art, there is so much to see and discover in Vicenza. For example, the St. Corona church has the altar and a painting by one of the famous Venetian artists, Giovanni Bellini.

About 500 years ago, Antonio Pigafetta, a writer, navigator and geography expert from Vicenza, had completed an around-the-world trip. To celebrate this event, together with her colleagues, Chiara proposes the "Pigafetta tours of Vicenza", to discover the Gothic town of the 15th century. It was a period when the town was recovering from the plague epidemic, agricultural crisis and famines. The tour allows the visitors to look at the buildings from that era and to understand the life of those times.

Chiara feels that there are many aspects of the city linked with its artisans and production systems, which are equally valuable to visit and to know better. For example, Vicenza has long traditions of wool and silk production since 15th century. It is also known for it goldsmith artisans. Another example is that of specialised printing such as the Busato artistic printing press specialised in chalcography (bronze plate engraving for printing), lithography (printing with stone or metal plate) and xylography (wood-block printing). She feels that tours to visit and see these artisans at work can be another interesting way to discover and understand the city.

Conclusions

With the Covid-19 epidemic, few persons are travelling around. However, hopefully soon this epidemic will be over and persons will start travelling and visiting other countries. Personally, I miss my travelling very much. However, not to be able to travel to far-away places has a positive side-effect - I can go back and rediscover my old favourite towns like Vicenza.

When travelling will become possible and you will plan a visit to Venice and surrounding cities, I suggest that you keep a few days to discover towns like Vicenza, Padova and Verona, and to visit the smaller provincial towns of Vicenza such as Schio, Bassano and Marostica.

If you want to contact Chiara Pesavento, you can check her website - Vicenza Tourist Guide.

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