An international “dream”

The project was entrusted to Count Girolamo Frigimelica Roberti, an intellectual and architect who designed a French-style garden dotted with architectural features and closed at the far end by the scenic stables building, leaving the work on the main body of the Villa unfinished at the time of his death. With its exceptional nature and European scope, the entire project was part of an ambitious framework of social and political assertion by the Pisani brothers, which culminated in the election of Alvise Pisani as Doge of Venice in 1735. It was likely in this context that the architect Francesco Maria Preti was summoned to complete the Villa according to a new project featuring two courtyards set on a through-axis projected towards the Garden and the Stables.

In keeping with the magnificence of the exterior, the interior—furnished by the Pisani family with refined Baroque furniture, sculptures by Andrea Brustolon, Juste Le Court, and Filippo Parodi, and paintings by Francesco Zuccarelli—was ennobled by the work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Between 1760 and 1762, before departing for the court of Madrid, he created the masterful Apotheosis of the Pisani Family on the ceiling of the Ballroom, within quadrature by Pietro Visconti, entrusting the monochrome allegories on the walls to his son Giandomenico. Other rooms in the Villa feature important works by Jacopo Amigoni (The Judgement of Paris), Jacopo Guarana (Stories of Bacchus), and Giambattista Crosato (Hall of the Triumph of the Arts), while the corridors are graced by airy city views and pastoral scenes by Giuseppe Zais.

A witness to the fall of the Republic of Venice (1797) and the financial crisis of the Pisani family, the Villa experienced a new glorious era thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte, who purchased it from the Pisani heirs in 1807 for 1,901,000 Venetian lire, later entrusting it to his stepson, the Viceroy of Italy Eugène de Beauharnais. On this occasion, by adding a mezzanine to the ancient church and renovating several rooms in the southern sectors, the ‘Empire style’ apartments were created for Beauharnais—featuring the famous Napoleonic Room—and for Vice-Queen Amalia, with her refined bedroom connected to a precious ground-floor bathroom frescoed in the Pompeian style.

Its new function as a suburban royal palace was maintained even after Napoleon’s defeat (1814), with the establishment of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. In particular, Maria Anna Carolina Pia of Savoy, Empress consort of Ferdinand I of Austria, chose it as a favorite place for holidays and hospitality for the European aristocracy visiting Venice. Thanks to Viceroy Rainer Joseph of Austria, the Garden—which during the years of the French administration had undergone a drastic revision compared to the original Pisani design—was enriched with an important selection of citrus trees in the Orangerie and a collection of exotic plants that still make up the Museum’s rich botanical collection today.

The annexation of Veneto to the Kingdom of Italy (1866) marked a turning point in the life of the Villa. Under the House of Savoy, it lost its role as a representative residence until, in 1884, it was established as a Royal Museum. It continued to attract illustrious visitors (Richard Wagner, Gabriele D’Annunzio), became the stage for the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler in 1934, and piqued the interest of Pier Paolo Pasolini, who filmed one of the episodes of Porcile (1969) here.