Garden Sculpture and Fresco Decoration in 17Th and 18Th Century Venetian Villas
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MARC.HKHITA AZZI VISENTINI GARDEN SCULPTURE AND FRESCO DECORATION IN 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY VENETIAN VILLAS One of die most striking aspects <>f Italian Renaissance and las.2 Statuary appeared in the villas of the V'eneto in the Baroque villas is die dose connectJon thal links architecture 1530s-1540s, contemporaneously. or even before fresco and gardens. The two parts of (he residence consiitute. ar- decoration. Among the earliest examples are Villa Garzoni chitecturally speaking, a unity, iliey were planned aecord- at Fontrecasale. work of the architect and sculptor Jacopo ing to tlie same rules and lie on tlie same axes. The garden. Sansovino. who executed bJmself the two imponant fire- in tbe quattrocento just a small outdoor extension of die places with mantelpieces and possibly the statues ol [he in• house, to which it was often connected by tlie intermedian- ner courtyard and of the front garden. and Villa Brenzone of a porch or a loggia, gradually increased its dimensions at Funta San Vigilio, where antique and modern sc ulptures, and importance. Its decoration liecame richer and compli- aecompanied by bitin inscriptions. were distributed along cate. and in some interesiing Gases an iconography linked the itinerary of the garden. aecording to the program de- to thal inside the nearby house was adopted also föt die vised around 1540 by the owner himself. Agostino Bren• garden: Along the itinerary of liouse and garden a story was zone. Since the 1530s. with Sansovino's Biblioteca Marcia- re> ealed, through paintings and statu es as well as by means na and l.oggetta, both in Venice. Statuary became a funda• of die Vegetation. A detailed letter written by Alessandro mental ornament of Venetian Renaissance architecture. Hniccesi to Bernardo Bembo around 1480 explained thal In Iiis Quattro libri deH'archiicttura' (published in 1570) the choice of plants in the Medici Villa at Careggi near Flor- Falladio sometimes mentioned the sculptors of Iiis build• ence corresponded t<> their mythological connecdons. ings. as it was the case for the sculptures for the four en- Statues were adorning gardens since antiquity. At the lx-- trance stairways of the Rotonda. a work of Lorenzo Rubini. ginning of the sixteenth Century in Rome. starting with the and always reproduced them in the illustrations, bin he did Belvedere Court in the Vatican. archaeological collections not exteml Iiis attention to the garden. On the contrary. Vin- were usually exhibited in gardens, coneeived as sort of cenzo Scamozzi, in Iiis Idea della architettura universale', open air museums. Since around 1550. aütique statues (in published in Venice in 1615. wrote of statues in villa gar• case of necessity completed with modern ones) became dens, recommending to distribute them so as to lel the ax• part of the general program which involved every aspeel of ial view unobstaicted. and suggested as subjects of foun• the compositum, from painted and plastic decoration to the tains Neptune. Moses striking w ater. Apollo, young Tritons, Vegetation and the fountains, giving form to an effective river gods, nymphs, putti with dolphins and so on. Gesamtkunstwerk. At thal time the so-called "iconogra- From the second half of the seventeenth Century statues pher" came to the fore, a highly culüvated person whose in the gardens of the \eneto increased incredibly in num- ptofound knowledge was employed to establish the so- ber and importance. becoming, together with plants in potS phistlcated iconographic program, thal usually celebrated (espedally citrus)1, the diain feature and ornament 01 the the patron and Iiis CÜcIe. This was the case for Villa Medi• otherwise (|uite simple layoul of the gardens. that where ci at Castello near Florence, Villa Giulia in Rome. Villa generally rectangular in form and subdivided in Square d'F.ste in Tivoli. Villa I'arnese at Caprarola and Villa Aldo• conipartments by perpendicular roails. The prolileralion of brandini at Frascati, whose iconographic programs were statues w as due to the combination of two factors: the avail- suggested by the well known scholars Benedetto Varchi. ability of an easy to work and quite resistant limestone. the Annibal Caro, Firro I.igorio and Giovan Battista Agucchi. SO-called pietra tenera from the Berici and Euganean Hills. and (with the exception of the program ot the villa ol Cas- Costozza and Nanto. and of extremely able artisans. or hei• tello which w as limited in the garden), Involved both inter- ter artists, who. working for generadons in large "botteghe". ior and exterior. i.e. buildings and gardens. The texts ot Fir- or Workshops, transmitted their prolession from father to ro Ligorio and Father Agucchi are detailed descriptions of son and to a large group of pupils. They could deliver in the iconographic programs of Villa d Este and of Villa Aldo• shtMl time an incredible numlxT of pieces of quite a high brandini, while Giorgio Vasari illustrated. in Iiis Vite de' piü quality. The Marinali of \ icenza and the Bonazza of Fadua eccellcnti Aicbitetü Fittori, et Scultori italianf, the program are the most famous botteghe. but many others could be of the garden of Castello.1 mentioned.' So. [he villas of the V'eneto were invaded by a The same development look place in the Venetian lerra- silent, white crowd. amounting up to one hundred and ferma, where, as it is well know n. villa architecture was pri- even more, in the same garden. The tarne of Venetian art- marily linked to the agricultural exploitation of the lields. in ists reached all Furope: In 1717 Giovanni Bonazza seht stat• conirast to the leisure purpose of most of central Italian vil• ues of the four parts of the day to the Kussian court for the H7 garden of the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg. For Peterhof To the original nucleus new statues were added in time and Iiis sog Antonio executed in 1757 statues of Flora. Pomona. others were eliminated. sold or transferred, so that it is dif- Zephyr and Vertumnus, Between che more common sub- ficult to reconstruet their original number and display. The jects 6f statuary, whose purpose was to celebrate the own- minor interest of scholars for sculpture and gardens com- er and Iiis family. Iiis ideals. virtue. fame over time. vvisdom. pared to paintings make tliings even more difficult. A limit• Gulture and agriculture (the inain reason of the existence of ed number of inventories of statues in the gardens of the the villa) were allegorical figures, the four parts of the Veneto exist, Few attempts have been made to study their world. the four Clements, the four seasons. the four parts of meaning and reason. However. with the help of interesting the tlay. the arts. Olympic deities. Roman heroes. nymphs documenis. we will try to consider some cycles that are still and satyrs - a repettory traditional since the sixteenth Cen• readable. tury represented also in the fresco decoration inside. Their The first. early example. is Villa Barbarei at Maser, built imagcs were taken from classical manuals, like Vincenzo around 1556 on plans prepared by Andrea Palladio togeth- Cartari's 'Imagini de i dei'j and Pierio Valeriano"s 'Hiero- er with the patron Daniele Barbaro on the final slopes of glj phica', published both in 1S56, the First in Venice and the the Asolo hüls, and completed in the following years with second in Basel, and Cesare Ripa's Iconologia', whose first frescoes by Paolo Veronese and sculptures by Alessandro edition, followed by several others. appeared in Rome in Vittoria. This perfect example of the Integration between in- 1593- Between the most interesting documents we must re- teriorand exterior decoration follows the iconographic pro- member the so-called album del Marinali', a rieh dossier of gram proposed by Daniele Barbaro himself. The precise drawings by Orazio and Iiis Workshop reproducing. in sev• meaning of the decorative program of Villa Barbaro. ex• eral sheets, a varied repertory of statuary for gardens. but pressed thrOUgh frescoes, stuecos and statuary. partly paint- also for churches, with possible alternatives, today at the ed in the lipper störe of the building and partly tridimen- Museo Civico of Bassano del Grappa. near Angarano, birth- sional. in the garden. is not clear in every detail. Many place of the slonecutters" family." scholars have been involved to deeipher it. Harmony in the W ith time new Images were added to the traditional ones. microcosm of the family. in the government of the land. in like peasants, exotic Indians. Turkish and oriental men. gro- Venetian politics and in the cosmos is certainly one of the tesque figures and witty dwarfs. masques and character.s main items. Harmony is intended in a Wide sense. as for- from the commedia dell'arte. interacting one another as in lune, peace, love. concord. Allegorical and mythological a lively open air theatre. A good example is the statuary of figures are elements of the language through which this the garden of the Baroquc villa Widmann at Bagnoli di So- message is expressed. Veronese. Vittoria and also the other pra. composed öf one hundred and sixty pieces being pari patron, Marcantonio Barbaro. brother of Daniele, were of different cycles. between which those executed by Anto• responsibte for its display in the interior. in the giardino nio Bonazza and followers in 1742 for Lodovico Widmann segreto at the back, and in the garden in front of the representing putd holding the twelve Zodiac signs, but al• mansion." so soldiers. masques. an aristoeratie couple. a hunter and a Let us now consider a later example, Villa Manin at Pas- peasant vvoman. an old man and an old woman quarrelling. sariano. the residence of the powerful family which bought giving the impression of assisting to one of the goldonian the accession in the Venetian nobillty at a high price in 1651 plays often represented here in the eighteenth Century." during the Cretan war.