Villa Valmarana ai Nani. Villa Valmarana ai Nani is a Venetian villa located on the outskirts of the city of Vicenza, on the slopes of the San Bastian hill, an offshoot of the nearby Monte Berico. The villa is famous for the extraordinary cycle of frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico. The nickname ai Nani, with which it is known, to differentiate it from the other villas of the same family, is due to the 17 stone sculptures representing the dwarves, once scattered in the park, then lined up on the surrounding wall. The villa, despite being inhabited by the noble Valmarana family, is open to the public six days a week, like the nearby Villa Capra called La Rotonda by Palladio, owned by another branch of the Valmarana family. In fact, the driveway leading to the villa continues eastwards along the unpaved road that leads to the Rotonda, a few hundred meters away. The enclosure of Villa Valmarana with the sculptures of the characteristic dwarves. The first building, the residential one, commissioned by Giovanni Maria Bertolo, was completed in 1670. During the following years the structure were placed side barn, a guest house, a barn and several other buildings, typical of the Venetian villas however, the hilly location and the interests of the owners mean that this villa is characterized more as a residence than as an agricultural production center. In 1720 the property was sold to the Valmarana brothers: still today it is this family that owns the complex and lives in it. In 1736 Giustino Valmarana commissioned Francesco Muttoni with the restoration of the villa; it was Muttoni who made many of the changes that are currently seen, such as the triangular pediments on both sides of the main building, the stairways and side turrets of the building, as well as the infill of the arches of the guesthouse and the construction of the stables, developed on two floors, with access from the avenue leading to the villa and from the square above. In April 1944, in the middle of World War II, some incendiary bombs hit the villa and destroyed a large part of the ceiling of the Aeneid room. Almost all the frescoes had to be removed: for some the tear-off technique was used, while the others were detached after the demolition of the rear wall in order to preserve all the thickness of the plaster on which they had been painted. At the end of the war they were reapplied to the walls. Today I visited the Villa Valmarana decorated by Tiepolo, who gave free rein to all his virtues and shortcomings. The elevated style did not smile on him like the natural one, and there are precious things about the latter, but as a decoration the whole is happy and brilliant. The main building and the guesthouse were frescoed by Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico in 1757, at the behest of Giustino Valmarana. In particular, the main building traces mythological and classical themes, with scenes from the Iliad, from the Aeneid, from mythology, from the liberated Jerusalem of Torquato Tasso and from the Orlando furioso of Ariosto. On the four sides of the villa as many rooms evoke the epicancient and modern through heroic-amorous scenes: as in an initiatory journey, the protagonists of the four great poems of the history of Europe reflect on the need to overcome the delights and pains of love to reach heroic maturity and solitude. In addition to the brush, Tiepolo has in his hands the books that have marked Western thought, the history that links the ancient to the modern, from ancient Greece and imperial Rome to the great Italian Renaissance, in a game of mirrors and imitations. The villa thus becomes a palace of memory, a scheme of the universe hinged on the four pillar corners in which the key characters of the epic, the imaginary story that unifies the times through the deeds of the heroes celebrated for their adamantine courage and extraordinary virtues, are gathered together in dialogue on a virtual theater. The frescoed characters express a sentimentality that recalls the present in melodrama, a theatrical genre widespread in the 18th century which had its best known exponent in Pietro Metastasio. In the atrium the Sacrifice of Ifigenia is represented and on the left the Greek Fleet in Aulis in the ceiling Diana and Aeolus above the doors personifications of the rivers, the work of Giandomenico Tiepolo. The first room is dedicated to the Iliad, and proposes in a trompe l'oeil the meditative, solitary melancholy of Achilles who renounces Briseis. In the Iliad room, Teti consoles Achilles stands out, with the Achaean hero portrayed in the classic posture of a melancholy man: the arm supports the head while the weapons lie abandoned; among the sea waves appears Teti, Nereid wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles. The Homeric room gives access to the Ariostesque one: after Achille, the daring story of Roger who frees Angelica from the orca and those of bucolic and tenderly loving inspiration by Angelica and Medoro.