The Venetian Villas and the Brenta Riviera

The Venetian Villas and the Brenta Riviera

The Brenta Riviera, a well-known waterway between Padua and Venice, is a panoramic area of the historical, artistic and cultural point of view. It is a natural extension of the Grand Canal and is punctuated, along the banks of the Naviglio (the artificial canal which crosses it), by picturesque Venetian villages and surrounded by an agricultural landscape. The Brenta Riviera has fascinated many important personalities through the times: Casanova, Galileo Galilei, Byron, Montesquieu, and D'Annunzio visited, Canaletto, Cimaroli and Tiepolo painted, and it was praised in Goldoni's and Goethe's masterpieces. The French and Russian royal families, the Hapsburg and the Savoys and even Napoleon stayed here and the Venetian nobility chose it as the scenery for their Venetian Villas. They built here magnificent residences, enclosed by monumental gardens, frescoed and designed by Palladio, Tiziano and Tintoretto.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: Museo Nazionale di Villa Pisani, Via Doge Pisani, 7, Stra Italy

Villa Pisani at the monumental, late Baroque rural palace along the Brenta Canal at the Doge Pisani Street near the town of Stra, on the mainland of the Veneto, northern Italy. This villa is one of the largest examples of the Venetian Villa located in the Brenta Riviera, the canal linking Venice to Padua. The Pisani family of Venice, commissioned to number of villas, also known as Villa Pisani across the Venetian mainland. The villa and gardens now operate as a national museum, and the site sponsors art exhibitions.

Duration: 1 hour

Stop At: Villa Widmann Rezzonico Foscari, Via Nazionale 420, 30034, Mira Italy

The Villa Widmann-Foscari, also called Widmann-Rezzonico-Foscari, is a villa at the shores of the river Brenta located in the small town of Mira, between Venice and Padua.

The present palace was built in the 18th century; a succession of families including the Sceriman, Donà, Foscari, had previously owned the site. The present villa was apparently designed and built in 1719 by Alessandro (? ... Andrea) Tirali, a Venetian architect. The Widmanns commissioned the internal frescoes mainly by Giuseppe Angeli, a pupil of Giambattista Piazzetta, and Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, who worked with Tiepolo. Statues of gods, nymphs and cupids. In Barchessa (a protruding arcade wing usually functioning as storage sheds or stables) and a small church, where Elisabetta and Arianna Widmann are buried, they are also part of the Villa's buildings.

Duration: 1 hour

Stop At: I Molini di Dolo, Centro Storico, 30031 Dolo Italy

Walk through the ancient village of Dolo, on the bank of the Brenta River.

Duration: 10 minutes