SPECIAL ITINERARIES

The itinerary starts off from Villa Loschi-Zileri-Dal Verme, attributed to G. Massari, set in a romantic park between the dazzling frame of the meadows of Biron and the fair countryside of Monte Crocetta and the hill of Creazzo. G.B. Tiepolo worked there day and night in the summer of 1734, creating a splendid cycle of frescoes, the first in the Vicenza area. They are allegories of the virtues which open up the walls and ceilings with country scenes or brightly lit skies; one of the most famous, "Time discovering Truth", is on the ceiling of the main staircase. In the ball-room, in the centre of the ceiling, are other complicated allegories the subjects of which are Justice, Fortitude, Glory, Truth and Wisdom. On the east wall "Faithfulness in Love" and "Modesty fleeing Pride"; on the opposite wall Charity giving out alms" and "Glory crowning Courage".

We leave Villa Loschi and a good road takes us through the valley of Sovizzo, an enchanting countryside dominated by the Castles of Romeo and Juliet above Montecchio Maggiore, to Castelgomberto where stands Villa Piovene-da Schio (1666), attributed to the architect A. Pizzocaro.

Three large canvases by the young Tiepolo (1725) account for much of the charm and fame that surrounds the villa: the large centre panel shows "Ulysses discovering Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes"; on the sides "Apollo and Marsia" and "Hercules suffocating Antaeus". In the Green Drawing- room of the villa is another beautiful work by Tiepolo: a small devotional picture of St. Roch.

From Castelgomberto the SS 246 road takes us to Montecchio Maggiore; after the town we come to the entrance of Villa Cordellina-Lombardi, now belonging to the Administration of the Province of Vicenza, a solemn and luxuriant residence in the Palladian style begun in 1735 to a design by G. Massari.

G.B. Tiepolo decorated the hall between autumn 1743 and spring 1744. On the walls are two magnificent scenes, "The family of Darius before Alexander" and "The generosity of Scipio". In the ceiling Massari's architecture acts as a support for Tiepolo's painting, creating the space where we can admire one of the Venetian master's skies most palpitating with light. The scenes in Villa Cordellina are forerunners of the years of Tiepolo's full maturity, marked by the two great "exploits" of Palazzo Labia in Venice and the Residence in Würzburg.

From Montecchio Maggiore we return towards Vicenza (SS 11) to reach, on the Riviera Berica, Villa Valmarana ai Nani the famous decorations of which are thus described by Goethe in his Tagebucher on September 24 1786: "Today I visited Villa Valmarana which Tiepolo decorated letting loose all his virtues and his faults. The sublime style has not been as successful as the natural, but in this there some most attractive things: as a decorator in general he is most felicitous and skillful." The poet's happy, but wrong, intuition in seeing two styles in Tiepolo's work at Valmarana was due to a mistake in reading a date: 1737 instead of 1757. This is the signed proof that the son Giandomenico was working alongside his father for the first and only time n the history of Tiepolo's painting.

The hand of the father dominates in the Palazzina, while Giandomenico made only a few, but always most successful, interventions on a ceiling, a landscape and a monochrome. In the central hall the "Sacrifice of Iphigenia", the "Descent of Diana" and the "Greek fleet at Aulis". The rooms on the right contain respectively three episodes from the Iliad in the first and the loves of Angelica and Medoro in the second. In the second room on the left are three episodes from the Aeneid, while the first contains four episodes from Jerusalem Delivered. The Foresteria or guests' quarters, restored by the architect C. Scarpa, is made up of seven rooms decorated by G.D. Tiepolo, except the Olympus room which is by Giambattista. The first is the room of "Chinoiseries"; this is followed by the room of "Country scenes characterized by a pure naturalism. The next is the "Gothic" room, the fruit of the imagination of the painter of illusionary architectural perspectives G. Mengozzi Colonna. After the "Olympus" room we come to the one with the "Carnival scenes" where Mengozzi Colonna has left us an absolute masterpiece of architectural illusion in the double baroque staircase, on either side of the door, with the figures of the negro slave and the monkey. The Foresteria is completed by the "Architecture" room and the "Putti" room.

This visit to Villa Valmarana ends the "classic" Tiepolo itinerary in Vicenza; but anyone who wishes to have a more complete idea of the masterpieces that the two great painters left in Vicenza should stop at Palazzo Chiericati, the home of the Civic Museum, to admire the famous "Immaculate Conception" and the "Allegory of Fame and Time" by G.B. Tiepolo and the "Beheading of St. John the Baptist" by Giandomenico. Two buildings in Vicenza house frescoes by G.B. Tiepolo: Palazzo Valle in Contrà Busa S. Michele, which has undergone long and accurate restoration work, and Palazzo Porto-Festa in Contrà Porti. As regards the latter, there remains the second layer of a fresco (the first is in the Museum of Seattle) in the large hall on the ground floor; on the other hand, three views of the sky in the beautiful barrel-vaulted room remain intact. There are frescoes by G.D. Tiepolo in Palazzo Franco at Porta Padova, while the monochrome paintings on the tabernacle of the Church of Santo Stefano are attributed to the same hand. In the province of Vicenza it is worth visiting the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa to see the young sketch of the "Madonna and Child" and the "Circumcision" by G.B. Tiepolo. Giandomenico too is present with a "Virgin and Child" a "St. Francis of Paola" and a "St. Joseph".

At Rampazzo (a hamlet attached to Camisano Vicentino which may be reached by leaving the SS11 for Padua at Torri di Quartesolo), the parish church houses the altar-piece "The Glory of St. Gaetano Thiene" which with its soft colours recalls the frescoes of Villa Valmarana.