Villa Cordellina, Montecchio Maggiore

Speranza


The charming stucco-covered house of the Villa Cordellina in Montecchio Maggiore, near Vicenza, was designed by the Venetian architect Giorgio Massari in 1735=60.

The principal room behind the Ionic portico running the whole height of the Villa is decorated with noble fescoes by Tiepolo painted in 1743.

The work consists of a ceiling fresco, "The Triumph of the Arts', and two large wall paintings showing "The Family of Darius before Alexander" and "The Continence of Scipio."

Baroque turbulence seeems here to have subsided into the calm of Neo-classicism, leaving, however, a few traces behind it, for instance in the eared architraves of the upper windows which create the illusion of concavity, and in the twisting forms of the sculpture representing classical divinities.