cerca nel sito

Storia di Poiana Maggiore

english - français - deutsch - italiano

Physical and cultural historical-context

Pojana Maggiore is the southern-most commune on the Vicenza plain, hemmed in between the provinces of Padua and Verona. Reclamation of the area, originally crossed by the meandering bed of the Adige river, began when the Emperor Augustus took it from the Este colony and bestowed it on the Azziaco soldiers as spoils of war. The ancient agricultural traditions of the area are reflected in its name which seems to derive from the Lombard terms plojum and plojana, meaning cultivated, or ploughed places - terms that came into use when the area was first colonised around 600 - 700 AD. Royal assent to build the Castle dates from 917 AD and, despite the documentary sources being extremely poor and uncertain, it is known that in 1220 Pojana Castle was owned by the Bishop of Vicenza, as were many others scattered throughout the territory. An imperial diploma declares the Bishop as being a feudatory of the German Emporors, but this turned out to be a counterfeit, possibly drafted during disputes between the Bishop and Vicenza Commune.

Following the vicissitudes of the thirteenth century, the Castle passed into the hands of the Paltinieri family of Monselice, which acquired all the lands of Pojana and also adopted its name (the change of surname seems to have been related to certain matters of disloyalty and dishonour). The territory of Vicenza, and therefore also Pojana, enjoyed a short period of tranquillity only after its annexation in 1400 by the Venetian Republic, which continued reclamation work and guaranteed a certain political stability. However, the War of Cambrai brought about further periods of looting and devastation by the armies crossing over or staying in the area.

The castle

Evidence documenting the presence of a castle in Pojana dates from 917 AD. There is then a silence, typical of the first centuries of the new millennium, broken by accounts of its destruction in 1240 by the ghibellin Ezzelino da Romano, ally of Emperor Frederick II. The castle was rebuilt in the first years of 1300, then demolished once again in 1312 during the war between Padua and Verona. Until its appropriation by the Venetian Republic, Pojana Castle occupied a key position in the vast area of southern Vicenza, able to control the Paduan lands to the south east and the Veronese to the west. The castle was naturally protected by three courses of water on the Montagnana side, and by watchtowers near Orgiano, Sossano and Noventa, which also defended the village that had grown up around it. Count Pagano Paltinieri built his manor house 'in brick and stone' on the ruins of the castle. In 1400, Odorico Pojana embellished the palace and rebuilt the tower, partially destroyed in 1312, adapting it to residential use according to the latest fashions established by Venice. The chapel of St. Zenone also has ancient origins, having been reconstructed at the beginning of the fifteenth century for family use, and restructured in 1588 by Abbess Silvia Pojana.

The church was given a new marble altar, the hall was adorned with a painted vault, and the adjacent house turned into a sacristy and frescoed, vague traces of which are still visible today. In this same period, the tower was ennobled by the construction of a small loggia adorned with metopes, triglyphs and oeils-de-boeuf in soft stone, while the interior staircase and first floor room were embellished with masonry barrel and umbrella vaults. Prior to these works, the rooms were probably decorated with a frescoed frieze running the whole length of the walls, as testified by the traces of painting visible near the fallen chimney. Pictorial decorations with floral motifs are also repeated in the second floor room, though this is no longer accessible due to the collaspse of the external staircase. New works to the castle complex took place in 1697, as shown by an inscription under the cornice of the cottage to the right of the tower. This confirms works carried out to enlarge the remains of the old castle stables, to decorate the inside of the palace, and to turn part of the grounds into a garden. The cottages alongside the tower were the object of further works at the end of last century, probably in 1880 when the canal was covered over, the remains of the drawbridge removed and the neo-Gothic portico connectiong the palace to the annex of the sacristy was built. It is also quite probable that the neo-Romanesque biforate windows were opened at the same time.

The little church was in constant use over the centuries as a noble's chapel, while the adjacent room, built to serve as a sacristy in more recent times, was then enlarged by the addition of a rustic annex used as a dairy and then as a tobacco drying room. While still retaining its original residential function, the palace was transformed from a noble dwelling into a simple farm building, and, together with the other buildings, is now witness to the abandonment of the whole complex.

Castles like that of Pojana, which were fairly widespread, began disappearing in the violent battles waged between rival factions in the Middle Ages. The peculiarity of this complex, however, lies in the environment created at the end of the sixteenth century, when the Pojana Counts commissioned Andrea Palladio to build a new residence facing the old castle. The whole castle complex is quite unsusual in its reflection of an array of architectural styles: the defensive Medieval structure and layout is visible alongside alterations made to accommodate fifteenth century living traditions, adaptations to the new lifestyles linked to the rediscovery of the countryside typical of 'Villa Civilisation', and cultivated eighteenth century architectural changes. Finally the whole complex reflects the loss of all interest in the historical heritage of the buildings, with consequent incompatible modifications in use that gradually led to the complete disregard and abandon of a significant page in the history of southern Vicenza.

Villa civilisation in the veneto

A series of events between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries was the cause of radical changes in Europe. And Venice, a city open to international influences, eagerly adopted every new idea. The defeat of Cambrai (1517) was not the beginning of the end for Venice, but rather an important time for reflection that heralded important new stages in its history. One of these was the birth of Villa Civilisation, fruit of a new political approach to the mainland by Venice. The Cambrai defeat underlined the importance of dominating and governing the 'terraferma', starting with a new method of organising and fortifying the land in order to 'appreciate its strength and exploit its resources'. An aristocracy appeared within the cities confederated to the Republic and began establishing a new, more open feudal system in the countryside directly controlled by the Venetian magistrature. It was not by mere chance then, that by mid 1500 fortified castles were no longer being built. In their place, each town now saw the construction of a villa; buildings that were open both to the surrounding countryside and to the new cultural and artistic influences of the period.

An emblematic figure of this new artistic and cultural direction was Andrea Palladio, whose architecture managed to personify and glorify the patron without losing sight of the villa's role in the rural economy. In this way, his 'never too courtly' villas were born, which he sought to adapt to their functions and their surrounding environment in every case. Palladio's skill in this context is particularly apparent in southern Vicenza, where considerable reclamation work had taken place. The aristocracy that settled there, while inspired by the beautiful and the precious, shunned any excessive display of their status, preferring to adhere to the practical criteria of farming the land. There are three particularly representative explamples of this type: Villa Saraceno at Finale di Agugliaro, Villa Ferri-Pisani at Bagnolo di Lonigo, and Villa Pojana at Pojana Maggiore. In all these farmhouse villas, the main building with its large granaries and cellars was intended to be surrounded by barchesse, porticoes and dovecotes.

The villa

The exact year in which construction began on the new manor house commissioned by the Pojana family from Andrea Palladio is not known. They probably considered the palace they owned in the town and the one within the castle court insufficient to represent the family, thereby deciding to build a new residence. This was to be built on the site believed to be that of the original castle destroyed in 1240, and may have included various elements taken from the old palaces. In any case, by 1563 the "Veneziana" terrazzo floor was finished and most of the frescoes completed. The building is quite unique in the Palladian canon, making its chronological positioning within the whole body of his work rather difficult. There is no single schema that can be applied to Palladio's villas to identify them; indeed, the articulation of the facades here makes the Pojana quite different from the solutions adopted for the other villas.

The front and back facades are defined by a slightly projecting mid-section and underscored by a serlian motif sculpted out of the smooth walls and ending with a double arch enclosing five oeils-de-boeuf, a motif recalling Bramante's nymphaeum in Gennazzano. The serliana is supported on square pillars rather than columns (as shown in Palladio's own design). The same motif on the rear side is blind and more basic, while the numerous windows partly compromise the unity of this facade. This highlights something not uncommon in the work of Palladio: faced with the need to illuminate every room, the architect did not hesitate to make new openings, sacrificing appearance to more important functional requirements.

The internal spaces are ranged around a central hall reached from the elegant front loggia, with cross vault in the centre and barrel vaults at the sides. The central hall and square rooms in the corners of the villa have domical vaulted ceilings, while the small bedrooms repeat the motif seen in the entrance hall.

The sculptural and pictorial cycle is best appreciated by recalling the Pojana family's tradition of participating in military enterprises, and its particular aptitude for the art of war. A decorative cycle celebrating military glory seems to prevail inside the villa. The entrance hall is dominated by a bust of Bonifacio Pojana (the patron) in classical costume above the door, by the sculptor and plasterer Bartolomeo Ridolfi. In the Emperors' Hall (frescoes by Anselmo Canera and Bernardino India) the same theme is repeated: the monumental figures of the Emperors are shown on the walls punctuated by ionic columns, while the Cesar's victories are depicted in the webs of the domical vaults with the image of Olympus in the centre. Not by chance did Professor Michelangelo Muraro denominate this the 'Villa of the Warrior' in his study of Veneto Villa Civilisation. Another celebrated theme of the pictorial cycle concerns Fertility (in the small room decorated with grotesques), a subject dear to the heart of the patron who actually altered his will to be quite certain his properties would only pass on to heirs of his own blood. Finally, the theme of Fortune appears in the atrium, with the goddess lavishing the riches considered indispensable for the family's continued enjoyment of virtue and honour.

The whole villa complex, designed by Palladio to have two porticoed side wings joined to the main building and turned at right angles to reach the road, was never completed; or rather, was only partly realised with construction of the left wing at a much later date (1615) and probably with a whole series of alterations. It is not known if this barchessa was to reach the villa. It is possible that various demolition and construction works have led to the present layout in which the villa and barchessa are connected by a low nineteenth century building added onto the eighteenth century Muttoni-style building to the left of the villa.