Palladio's villa frescoed by Veronese
On the gentle slopes of the Asolo hills, Villa Barbaro at Maser is one of the most complete masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, because it brought together two of its greatest artists: the architect Andrea Palladio and the painter Paolo Veronese. It was built around 1554 to 1560 for the brothers Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro, Venetian humanists, the first a patriarch of Aquileia and translator of Vitruvius, the second an ambassador, and is part of the UNESCO site of the Palladian villas.
Palladio designed a villa that combines the noble residence, in the central block with a temple front, with the farm buildings in the long arcaded wings ending in dovecotes, an ideal union of beauty and productive country life. Inside, Veronese frescoed the rooms with one of the most enchanting decorative cycles of the century: mythological allegories, landscapes, painted architecture and trompe-l'oeil figures that seem to come out of the walls, such as a lady and her nurse leaning over a balustrade, a little girl peeping through a half-open door, a hunter entering the room, a dog and even a broom left in a corner. Behind the villa is a nymphaeum with stuccoes by Alessandro Vittoria, and in front of it the Tempietto, a small round church by Palladio inspired by the Pantheon.
Tip: the villa is still inhabited and produces wine, which can be tasted at the estate's winery; visitors wear felt slippers to protect the floors.
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