Along the Brenta...#82

Between Venice and Padova is a canal, the Brenta, along which wealthy Venitians used to have beautiful mansions or manors.

They were leaving Venezia during Summer to avoid the mephitic fragrances rising from the filthy canals, they were spending the warm season in those houses which were called "villegiatura".


The trilogy of "La villegiatura" are among the most beautiful theatre plays ever written. It is totally modern though created during the XVIII century by Carlo Goldoni. Nowhere else can one find the true sense of the villegiatura. The laziness, the vacuity, and also jealousy, lust and gambling, the human comedy in its most harsh description.

I love those houses, many of them built by the genius architect Palladio. I had read books about these works but I had to be standing in front of these buildings, visit them to understand that they were a true philosophical eigenstate.

A central cube on top of which is set a circular dome and four smaller cubic structures on each side of the main one. The entrance is typically inspired by classic Greek architecture. Palladio's genius manifests itself in the perfect proportions used, a true revisitation of the purest classic art. The square ground design is the usual symbol of the earth while the circular dome symbolises the elevation of the mind towards spirituality, the building itself being the medium.

A machine to think..

The most famous Palladian villa is the Rotonda where Joe Losey shot his beautiful "Don Giovanni", it is a masterwork. When you are there, life seems beautiful and nothing really matters, you get lost in another dimension. this is how beauty affects us. Look at this picture and dream with me...