Packing my luggage, I'm rehearsing my upcoming goodbyes in my head: goodbye to my fellow tour members, the tour Director and Manager, the architecture of Palladio, and the Veneto. Checking the drawers, I'm rewinding the images of the past week with the people, the architecture, the history, and the places all mingle.
Everyone gathers in the lobby, and we begin to move the cases back to the Campiello Querini Stampalia. I think the Director cannot help himself, turning to me, he points out the bridge. It's by Carlo Scarpa. I take the bait and begin snapping photos. I have some vague memory that it's the rare 'new bridge' in Venezia, somehow built without official approvals.
Mattina a Venezia
The taxi acqueo arrives and takes us past the north side of the city and under the train tracks to Tronchetto, the old cruise terminal. This area is super slick and modern, with a monorail to take passengers to the Piazzale Roma at the end of the Ponte della Libertà.
Of course, there are no more cruise boats, but the terminal is bustling. We move our bags over the gang planks and ramps to the awaiting coach that will take us to our last stops.
On the bus, the Director hands me a folder with information from an old exhibit by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher from 2008 (above). The photographs on the cards show a pair of folded, spiraling sculptural forms like frozen taffy. The 'Form Generation' diagrams are engrossing and beautiful; they illustrate more than explain. The text calls them 'phenotypes'.
I am grateful the tour was not a 'parade of villas' or solely focused on Palladio. It's been a thought-provoking mix of art and architecture, connecting the man and his work with the places, the historical figures, and the works of others – his contemporaries and ours.
The Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta, 1558-60) is another empty checkbox on my bucket list. In my mental catalog, La Rotonda (1567-90) is a building with four faces with a long approach, while Malcontenta has a font and a back with a rotating approach. In other words, Rotonda has a straight, sunken pathway and La Malcontenta sits in a bend of the Brenta.
The other memory device that's part of my database is the termale. The front face of Malcontenta is expressionless, but the back hides a frowny window, 'malcontent' (the things we do to pass a history test). I think this must be due to the Villa's orientation, north towards the river and south towards the farm fields. Of course, a 'malcontent' is not only someone who's unhappy, but also someone who is going to make trouble.
We arrive twenty minutes before ten, maybe a bit early as the gate is locked. I suppose that means we did well with the taxi acqueo and the bus. The docent arrives in a few minutes, walks quickly past as we follow. We hear sounds from inside, and the shutters begin to open (join the tour).
Two things stand out. First, the scale is enormous. After visiting so many of Palladio's villas, I'm still shocked by the size of them; the docent had to reach up to unlock the door. Second, the fake ashlar joints in the marmorino are deep and sharp. The facade is more 'alive' than I expected, with all the shapes and the energy they generate, especially the radial lines around the lunettes. This includes the exaggerated but playful chimneys and the strange dormer, which, if the house has a face, is its little hat.
I recall comparing the Villa Pisani at Bagnolo (1542-45), but strangely, that Villa never managed to have a face like Malcontenta.
I'm also thinking about our lesson in Palladio''s polychromy, because the water table course, the belt course, and the entablature below the attic are all exposed brick. The exhaust opening in the chimneys are also brick. But that thin strip of marmorino in the frieze is validation for my theories about Il Redentore.
Walking to the front, the subtle contrast in colors continues, as the water table and belt courses wrap around, and the entablature folds forward into the portico. The columns are brick, too, and the little dormer carries through, barely visible above the pediment.
The portico is an Ionic order, hexastyle temple front, two bays deep on each side, with an additional full and half column. The corner capitals are angulated as opposed to the pulvinar capitals at Rotonda, reinforcing the idea that guests are meant to see the facade as dimensional, in motion, as they approach aboard their gondolas (Google Street View).
A marble rail is now removed from the stairs, which may be less safe, but looks better without, as in Palladio's I Quattro Libri (they appear in Scamozzi's drawing).
Under the portico, I can inspect the details. The keystones and the bricks in the architrave, are like those at the Carità, with interlocking soldiers and rowlocks. The copper gutter and scupper keep the rain off the stairs. Whatever was in the pediment is gone, but the hooks are still there. Near the capitals of the two center columns, the red pigment is clearly visible (above).
The brick shafts meet the column bases flush, with no allowance for marmorino, similar to the Capitaniato (1565-72). However, the bricks have been chiseled, so someone tried to apply stucco to the shafts. Behind the entablature, the brickwork continues with standard courses. On the back side, the marmorino rises to the architrave, but there is no finish up to the wooden roof.
Like those at Rotonda, the Ionic capitals are plain, with no leafy ornament, egg-and-dart, or bead-and-reel. The door facing the river is similarly simple, as if the masonry shell encased a log cabin. The door surround is reddish, matching the bricks and with brackets that remind me of the Cenacolo Palladiano.
The interior frescos are by Battista Franco and Giambattista Zelotti. The frescos are wonderfully faded, and there is almost no artificial lighting in the interior spaces (program here). Apparently, the house is to be left as a home, and not repurposed as a hotel, event space, or exhibition hall. Chairs and tables of somewhat recent vintage (?) are arranged in comfortable settings in the corners.
On the other hand, one of the Hadid-Schumacher "phenotypes" is still in the front, northwest room (below). But it is not lit or otherwise presented – it's just there.
The portego is a vaulted cross-shaped space. In the arms of the cross, the vaults contain ovoid 'openings' with modiglioni on the edge trim. At the crossing, there is an octagon. Lookiing toward the termale, the proportions are evident: square plus half circle.
The natural lighting also makes it easier to discern between the trompe-l'œil and the real architecture.
The decorative program in the northeast front room is similar, with vaulted ceilings opening in levels. The south corner rooms (facing the fields) are smaller than the north (facing the river), because the stairs are located between them and the portego.
In the connecting room, the classical structures are in ruins, and the 'bricks' exposed. One of the figures is caught under a fallen boulder.
In the southeast corner there is a small sitting room where the frescos are restored, or at least they appear to be fresh. The ceiling is a shallow vault with a cross vault at the door and window.
The decorative scheme maintains the symmetry by adding a 'false vault. Small, romantic landscapes fill the lunettes and make the deception complete. This strengthens my idea that 'fresh' frescos make the trompe-l'œil more convincing.
Even the stair hall is lightly decorated with faux marble and grotteschi like those at Villa Trissino in Meledo (c1553-67). An opening to admit light looks like a 'Juliet balcony'.
Stepping back into the portego, I get a better view to the south of the immense lawn. The chairs in the corners are embraced by rails that cling to the remaining paint; even the wall frescos are scrubbed with use. But they look like cozy places to sit and have coffee.
Continuing to the west, I come to a roped-off bedroom. The frescoed ruins are now overgrown with vines, and there is a scene of an offering at a fire. I notice the corners of the vaulted rooms have a forty-five-degree chamfer, but this does not show up in the plans either. I check the opposite side, and this corner treatment recurs in the east connecting room. In the bedroom the chamfer is painted 'on', and is obvious, but in the connecting room it is painted 'over', as if to disguise it.
I catch up with the group and mention to the Director about my thoughts on the corners, and my theory about the faded frescos. I tell him how the 'false vault' is much more persuasive in the room with the stronger colors. He crooks his head and asks me about the vault.
I walk with him back to the sitting room and point out the deceit. For a minute he looks back and forth from the real vault to the fake one (more proof on Google Maps). He smiles and admits that he's never noticed that before, and I feel like I've just pulled a mind trick on a Jedi master.
We walk into town for coffee and our last 'loo' break, then take the bus to an agriturismo for lunch. Perhaps the most obvious disappointment of the trip is the food, chosen to please a group, so the meals are typically 'middle of the road'. They've not been bad, just nothing exciting – which seems like it'd take a real effort in Italy. But I think they go out on a high note; lunch at the agriturismo is excellent (charcuterie, roast chicken, etc). So, I leave feeling triumphant about that as well.
After lunch, we make our way to the coach and on to Marco Polo Airport. Everyone else is headed to the UK, and we're staying in the Shengen, so we say our final goodbyes in the departures teminal.
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