About the event

Vil­la Val­marana ai Nani is com­posed of three build­ings, the Palazz­i­na (Own­ers’ Res­i­dence) built in 1669, the Foreste­ria (Guest-House) and the Scud­e­ria (Sta­bles) built in 1720. They are embraced by a large his­tor­i­cal park with rose gar­dens, a “gia­rdi­no all’italiana” with its open-air the­atre and a dou­ble horn­beam alley ter­mi­nat­ing with a stat­ue of Nep­tune. It takes its name from the stat­ues of the 17 stone dwarfs, orig­i­nal­ly placed in the gar­den, now on the walls sur­round­ing the house. They were prob­a­bly sculpt­ed by Francesco Uli­a­co, most like­ly from the draw­ings by Gian­domeni­co Tiepo­lo.
The mag­nif­i­cence of the Vil­la is due to the dou­ble hand of the father and of the son, Giambat­tista and Gian­domeni­co. The father’s fres­coes, com­mis­sioned by Giusti­no Val­marana, are most­ly in the Palazz­i­na with the owner’s favorite themes; the son, in the Foreste­ria, was free to paint fol­low­ing his imag­i­na­tion, leav­ing the Room of the Olym­pus Gods for his father to paint. The most famous por­trait of Andrea Pal­la­dio who had built vil­las and palaces for the Val­marana fam­i­ly hangs on the wall of the main room, prob­a­bly paint­ed by Gio­van­bat­tista Mag­a­n­za (1513–1586).
The Val­marana fam­i­ly still lives in the Vil­la, which is uni­ver­sal­ly con­sid­ered the high­est expres­sion of the paint­ing of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry and one of the high­est exam­ples of the Tiepolo’s genius.