Exterior sculptural decoration of Villa Barbaro, Maser

Frontal view of Villa Barbaro in Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Villa Barbaro, also called Villa di Maser, is one of the most famous villas in Italy, known both as a fine example of Andrea Palladio’s (1508–80) domestic architecture and for its extensive interior frescoes by Paolo Veronese.

In Palladio’s symmetrical, classically-inspired design, two barchesse (aka, colonnaded storage or work areas) flank either end of the villa, and are connected to the main house by single-story arcades. The sprawling front of the buildings is punctuated regularly with sculptural decoration, additions that add texture and interest to the façade while, from close up, gently disrupting its near-perfect symmetry.

As is typical of wealthy homes from the late Renaissance, the decoration mostly presents a mixture of classical, Christian, astrological, and heraldic subjects. Such a combination not only pays homage to these sources, but visually and conceptually integrates the building’s owners into the intellectual, historical, religious, and political fabric of their period. The fact that the largest, highest, and most central of these sculptures consist of the Barbaro family’s heraldry likewise both announces the family’s ownership of the estate and asserts their importance in society.

What is less typical is the likelihood that much of this sculptural decor was made by one of Palladio’s patrons, Marcantonio Barbaro (1518–95). Carolyn Kolb (and the docent we spoke with onsite) credits Marcantonio—who, with his older brother Daniele (1514–70), commissioned the villa’s construction—with the niche sculptures on the front of the barchesse and in the nymphaeum (30).

Tympanum

Palladio designed the central structure of Villa Barbaro to resemble a Roman temple with a pediment filled with high-relief sculpture and two-story Ionic columns. However, whereas in a Roman temple the columns would have functioned to support the roof over a large porch, or portico, the columns here are primarily decorative and lie flat against the building’s front.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Tympanum of Villa Barbaro, Maser, decorated with the heraldry of the Barbaro family and the imperial crowned double-headed eagle most closely associated with both the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Barchesse and arcades

View of northeast section of Villa Barbaro: main house (left), arcade, and barchessa with astrological sundial (right). Unfortunately, the southwest barchessa and arcade were inaccessible during our visit.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Northeast arcade of Villa Barbaro, connecting the main house to a flanking barchessa.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Astrological sundial and mythological niche sculptures of the northeastern barchessa.

Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Niche sculptures of Perseus (left) and Diana (right) by Marcantonio Barbaro on the northeastern barchessa of Villa Barbaro.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Terracotta relief of Christ and the Sacred Heart at Villa Barbaro.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Garden sculpture with view of a barchessa at Villa Barbaro.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

nymphaeum

Nymphaeum of Villa Barbaro. The sculptures of opposite niches form pairs. From the outside going in, the left-right pairs are: male and female satyrs, Juno and Bacchus, Actaeon and Diana, Amymone and Neptune, and Helios and Venus.

Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Located directly behind the main house, Villa Barbaro’s nymphaeum was probably designed by Marcantonio Barbaro and Palladio. Its stucco decoration continues the classical allusions of Palladio’s architecture and Veronese’s interior frescoes, with most of the figures identifiable through their symbolic attributes (see captions). Marcantonio, an amateur artist better known to history and contemporaries as a Venetian diplomat and senator, likely sculpted its four giants as well as the niche sculptures. The reflecting pool doubled as a fishpond and was connected to a natural spring and the villa’s kitchen through a complex hydraulic system. The same system also irrigated the villa’s gardens (Kolb 17).

Architectural drawing of Villa Barbaro, from I quattro libri dell'architettura di Andrea Palladio (Book 2, page 51, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art). A larger version of the semicircular nymphaeum appears at the top of the drawing.

Sculpture of a river god or personification of a specific river, perhaps the nearby Piave, in the central grotto of Villa Barbaro’s nymphaeum.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Niche with statues of Venus and Cupid in the nymphaeum of Villa Barbaro. The giant on the left resembles a telamon, or male figure used in place of a column, also known as an atlas, atlante, or atlantid. However, neither this figure nor the other three like it actually serve a structural function. Rather, they are visual demarcations, framing the two rows of niches, the central grotto, and the nymphaeum itself.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Niche sculptures of the goddess Juno (Hera) with her peacock and the hunter Actaeon transforming into a deer while being attacked by his own dogs.

Nymphaeum of Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

The goddess Diana (Artemis) with her bow and arrows beside Bacchus (Dionysus) with his panther. Bacchus holds a dove, an unusual accompaniment for the god, which Carolyn Kolb has convincingly argued is a reference to his mother, Semele. She notes Bacchus’s placement opposite Juno and the inscription that accompanies the statue: “One who flies to heaven, pure and untouched/Is safe from the grumblings.” Taken together, these words and symbols likely refer to the mortal Semele’s death as a direct result of Juno’s jealousy and Jupiter’s infatuation.

Nymphaeum of Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Reference: Carolyn Kolb with Melissa Beck (ed.), “The Sculptures on the Nymphaeum Hemicycle of the Villa Barbaro at Maser,” Artibus et Historiae Vol. 18, No. 35 (1997), pp. 19–20.

The figure standing on a large fish is the Danaid Amymone. The water pitcher on her shoulder likely represents the spring of Lerna, which Neptune—who resides in the opposite niche (see above)—revealed to her (Kolb 22–23). Kolb has likewise identified the winged figure as Helios, which makes sense in the broader context of the nymphaeum, with its alternating male and female figures and his placement opposite Venus, with whom he shares a myth (24–25). However, I must admit that I initially thought the figure was female and had assumed it to be either the messenger and rainbow goddess Arcus (Iris), who was sometimes depicted with wings, or Victoria (Nike), goddess of victory and protectress of the senate.

Nymphaeum of Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Giant pseudo-telamons flanking the central grotto of the nymphaeum at Villa Barbaro, Maser, Italy.

Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Non-Sculpture Bonus: Adorable Onsite Fluff

The Veneto’s many friendly, floppy-eared dogs were unexpected highlights of our time in Italy, including this pup, who greeted us and requested belly rubs in the parking lot of Villa Barbaro.

Photo by Joshua Albers.

Silent, unchanging household: Veronese's figures at Villa Barbaro

One of Veronese’s most engaging figures watching visitors from the walls of Villa Barbaro. Photo from Web Gallery of Art.

With a building designed by Andrea Palladio (completed c. 1558) and immersive frescoes by Paolo Veronese (c. 1560–61), the Villa Barbaro in Maser is one of Italy’s great examples of gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. The home’s original owners, the brothers Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro, were well-educated humanists whose tastes are reflected throughout the allegorical, mythological, and classical aspects of Veronese’s masterpiece. Consistent with this Renaissance spirit, the artist probably modeled several of the frescoes’ figures on his patrons, his patrons’ family (including pets), and himself.

Veronese took great pains to create the perception of three dimensions in his work at Maser, depicting naturalistic shadows that mimicked the specific effects of each room’s primary light source, architectural details that feel like logical extensions of the Villa’s Palladian architecture, and life-size figures to live within these fictional spaces. Thus instilled with a bright, startling realism, his figures refuse to blend into the walls like decorative wallpaper, and instead demand to be acknowledged by visitors as fellow actors inhabiting a shared space.

All of this begs the questions: What was it like to live, day-in and day-out, year after year, with these silent, often judging, personages? Was the strangeness compounded for the first owners, who would have seen themselves and people they knew in the unchanging figures while their real bodies altered with age? What was it like to live surrounded by allegories of both behavioral and social roles, like those illustrated in the man of Virtue restraining the woman of Passion with a horse bit? Or to have your family’s coat of arms (or that of the family you worked for) embedded in all of this imagery, as if your familial stamp literally belonged on the world around you?

Unfortunately for us (but good for the frescoes), photography is not allowed within the Villa. All images of Barbaro’s interior included here are therefore from Web Gallery of Art.

View of the Sala a Crociera with Muses and girl peeking through a fictional door. The girl may be based on one of Marcantonio’s children with Giustina Giustiniani. Photo and identifying info from Web Gallery of Art.

Alternate view of the Sala a Crociera showing the contrast between the actual flatness of the painted walls surrounding the far simpler molding, also designed by the artist. The fictional bannister and windows seem to continue the real bannister and window shape seen at the end of the hall. Veronese (or one of his assistants) originally painted the vaulted ceiling to resemble a pergola; the current, whitewashed appearance dates to the 19th century. Photo and identifying info from Web Gallery of Art.

Portrait of the Barbaro’s little dog painted on the trompe l’œil extension of the floor and before a false window with a view onto classical ruins and a bustling trading port. Photo from Web Gallery of Art.

Illusionistic ceiling of the Room of Conjugal Love depicting Hymen with Juno, Venus, and a betrothed couple. The upper portions of the walls are similarly covered in allegories related to marriage. The trompe l’œil grape trellises that seem to extend into the sky serve to increase the believability of the mythological scene between them. Photo and identifying info from Web Gallery of Art.

Virtue Restraining Passion. Photo from Web Gallery of Art.

View from the Sala a Crociera of the possible portrait of Veronese as a nobleman in hunting attire. This one fresco is physically separate from the more immersive and physically conjoined of Veronese’s other rooms, but that difference only makes the artist’s portrait more startling and the illusory extension of the hallway more believable. Photo from Web Gallery of Art.

Bonus:

Exterior of Villa Barbaro, Maser. The central, open window is the same seen in the second view of the Sala a Crociera, above. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

The classical and mythological allusions continue in the Villa’s backyard nymphaeum, seen here with grotto and reflecting pool. Marcantonio Barbaro, an amateur artist, probably designed the nymphaeum and may have sculpted its four giants. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.