Massanzago

Villa Baglioni at Massanzago

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The land estates of the Venetian family Lombardo in Massanzago were extended in 1672, when Alvise Lombardo bought some adjacent land to build a larger residence. Read More
Villa Baglioni at Massanzago

Villa Baglioni: the land estates of the Venetian family Lombardo in Massanzago were extended in 1672, when Alvise Lombardo bought some adjacent land to build a larger residence. The construction of the new country home, the architect of which is unknown, was completed around 1680. As the painting shows by Luca Carlevaris at the beginning of the 18th century, the northern façade overlooking the village also comprised two side buildings and a chapel at the extreme left. The Villa conserved that appearance until 1718, when it was purchased by Giovanni Battista Baglioni, heir of the rich Bergamo family of booksellers and printers, who had just acquired the noble title of Counts and joined Venetian aristocracy. The Massanzago residence should have been a concrete symbol of the noble rank of the dynasty and constituted a real mainland palazzo. The most extensive transformation was to the central building, elevated to three storeys and the rich interior decorations; the client commissioned Giambattista Tiepolo who frescoed the hall on the first floor, which was one of his first important works. The story of the mythological Fetonte, son of the sun god, was included in an architectural structure which was also painted over all the walls of the room, bordered by false loggias, where personalities looked out who had been involved with the life of the client. The villa was further decorated under Giovanni Antonio Baglioni, who arranged the surrounding park, which originally had several statues but which have been lost, and the polychrome stuccowork and frescoes on the ground floor by Antonio Zucchi in the second half of the 18th century. The Baglioni Villa, which has been used as a private residence, a school and a military hospital, was then bought by Massanzago Municipality, or most of it, at the beginning of 1900; the renovation of the interiors in the 1970s conserved the decorations and, above all, the historic witness to Tiepolo’s work.