Villa Barbaro

In the decoration of the Villa Barbaro at Maser, the finest example of the dialogue between architecture and frescoes in a villa interior, Veronese worked by constantly referring to Palladio`s architecture, thus achieving the ideal unity of the arts called for by Daniele Barbaro, who, with his brother Marcantonio, had commissioned the villa construction and pictorial decoration. In this fresco cycle, one of the most remarkable of the Veneto Cinquecento, figures and allegories are depicted above the architectural frame, thus creating a continuous play between fiction and reality and sacred and profane. 

Villa Emo

One of Palladio`s most significant achievements, Villa Emo can be seen as the translation into a new language of the classical canons of architecture. Commissioned by Leonardo Emo, Palladio completed the villa between 1557 and 1559. The complex has an essential overall composition: dominated by a raised central block on a base and joined to the garden by a long flight of stairs, the sides stretch out in symmetrical barchesse (outhouses) ending in dovecots. The symmetrical exterior structures are echoed in the extraordinary harmonious decoration of the frescoed interiors by Giovan Battista Zelotti, friend and assistant of Paolo Veronese

Villa Chiminelli

Villa Corner Chiminelli (1500) was entirely frescoed on the exterior and on the piano nobile by Benedetto Caliari (Paolo Veronese`s brother). After going up the short stairway, flanked by statues close to the style of Bonazza, you come to the main hall with its very unusual ceiling decorations, framed by small vaults, lunettes and ovals, proof of the “hand“ of Veronese. The illusionism is accentuated in the panel pattern, in which the architectural elements counterpoint with the windows and balconies giving onto the pleasant landscapes, perspectively set on the diagonals. The side rooms are also entirely frescoed and have Sansovino-type wooden ceilings. At an unknown date, the walls were whitewashed and the rooms divided, but thanks to the current owners` passionate interest these marvellous frescoes have been brought back to light.