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The sumptuous home of the last Doge,
Villa Manin of Passariano is renown
mostly for being the place where the Treaty -
known as the Treaty of Campoformido- was
signed in 1797 between Napoleon and
Austria which put an end to long years of
bloody war and sanctioned the end of the
glorious Venetian Republic, changing the
destinies and boundaries of most of Europe.
The earliest construction dates from the
16th century, when Antonio Manin, who had
become the owner of the lands
around Sedegliano,
had a manor house
built at Passariano
incorporating a preexisting
building in
what is now the left-hand
side 'barchessa'. It was then,
according to tradition, his
successor Ludovico who brought
about the complete transformation of the
building, keeping in mind Palladio's lesson
who had managed to humanize his classical
architectures, exposing them to light and
harmonizing them with the surrounding
natural landscape. It is however probable that
Manin was helped by Baldassarre Longhena
or Giuseppe Sardi, the uncle of Domenico
Rossi, the architect who, in the early 1700s,
carried out the final and brilliant restructuring
of the complex, imparting it a wholly new,
lively effect. It was his idea, indeed, to raise
the central body and the barchesse with
spectacular wings, portals and large niches.
The dominating element in the stately
ensemble is the three-storey
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gabled manor
house, whose façade is animated by the
semi-columns supporting the balcony, the
jutting frames and stone trimmings. Sloping
down towards the court, closed at the front
by a low wall and majestic, elegant brass and
wrought iron gate, is the wide staircase
leading into the three-storey-high hall
At the back, the villa opens onto a large
French-style park, were lawns, majestic trees
and statues and fountains seem to revive the
bucolic world of Arcady. The central-plan
chapel was built attached to the eastern
barchessa in the shape of an irregular
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octagon
in the early 1700s, very probably by Domenico
Rossi again, a
vivid example of how
architecture, sculpture and
painting may be perfectly harmonized
together. Apart from being an exquisite piece
of architecture, Villa Manin is a casket of
works of art, as for example, one of the
eastern rooms which boasts on the ceiling,
within a central round panel, the Triumph of
Spring and, in four smaller panels around it,
the Allegories of Love, Glory, Wealth and
Plenty, all frescoed by the Parisian painter
Ludovico Dorigny in 1708. On the walls, on
a monochrome gilded background, are scenes
with Apollo and Mars, Venus and Bacchus,
Paris's Judgement, and Pan and Syringe
among various allegorical figures.
In the Chapel are paintings by Francesco
Fontebasso (Scenes from the life of Adam and
Eve) and marble decorations by
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Giuseppe Torretti, the greatest 18th-century sculptor in
Veneto who is also the artist of the altar on
the right with a Miracle by St. Anthony and
the one on the left with the Happy Death of
St. Joseph, representing the harmonious
synthesis of lines and volumes. The total
command of the subject matter and the
classicising clarity of forms are the strength of the
high altar, with
a Virgin with Child and
SS. Ludovico and Andrea, probably by the
studio of sculptors Marinali, while Torretti
is certainly the artist of the spectacular
velarium. The same artist also made
the Crucifix, a Virgin with Child and two
panels portraying one the Immaculate
Conception and its effects, the other Our
Lady Of Sorrows and its causes in the
splendid vestry. Villa Manin has
become the venue for
prestigious art events,
as well as a
museum,
since it houses a collection
of historical coaches and a magnificent
armoury, particular furnishings (the so-called
Napoleon's Room) and paintings, all items
belonging to Udine's
Civic Museums.
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It is not certain that the name Udine is of
pre-Roman origin, as researchers support,
deriving from a word meaning 'mamma'
and then metaphorically 'hill'. The fact is,
however, that from the hill in the middle
of the city (which according to a
legend was formed with the earth
carried in Attila's soldiers'
helmets since the king, after
having sacked Aquileia, wanted to see
it on fire) it is possible to sweep in
one look the whole of Friuli, from...go
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