FAMILY
VILLA ANGARANO BIANCHI MICHIEL is a Palladian residence, included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996.
A few kilometers from the center town of Bassano del Grappa, Villa Angarano is located in a landscape of great beauty among the vineyards, the hills of S.Eusebio, the river Brenta and the Monte Grappa.
Five sisters (Carla, Giovanna, Anna, Maruzza, Isabella Bianchi Michiel) preserve this wonderful artistic and cultural heritage with great care and dedication in total respect for history, territory, and local traditions, without forgetting the importance of staying up to date with the times.
The mission is to continue to be one of the main landmarks for Bassano del Grappa, trying to keep alive, with integrity and industriousness, the beauty of the Villa as it was 500 years ago.
H I S T O R Y
Villa Angarano Bianchi Michiel is one of the Palladian architectural beauty in the Vicenza county, located north-est of Bassano del Grappa in the "Contrà" (district) San Eusebio, on the right bank of the river Brenta. Villa Angarano was commissioned by the Vicentine nobleman Giacomo Angarano to the architect Andrea Palladio to whom he was bound by a close relationship of esteem and friendship. In fact, Andrea Palladio dedicates to him the first two books of his treatise "The four books of Architecture" where he describes how the Villa enjoyed the benefits of the proximity of the river Brenta, a channel not only navigable, but also a source of utility for the water and for the abundance of fish. Palladio's annotation on local delights such as wine and fruit is interesting: "This place is famous for the precious wines that are made there, for the fruits that come from the land and much more for the courtesy of the lord".
Palladio elaborates other projects for Giacomo Angarano: the palace of Vicenza, which will host the wedding of Palladio's daughter and the bridge over the Cismon stream. The “Fabrica” (construction site) began in 1548, but the complex remained unfinished. Andrea Palladio designed and constructed the two Barchesse (arcades) and part of the agricultural court with the granaries, the colombara (dovecote), the stables and the cellar. The central body of the present Villa is late Baroque. The latter was designed and built at the end of the seventeenth century by the Venetian architect Domenico Margutti, a pupil of Baldassare Longhena at the behest of Maria Molin in Gradenigo. The noble church of S. Maria Maddalena housed on the front of the east Barchessa is also attributed to Margutti and built in the early 1700s. The 18 statues present are all attributed to Giacomo Cassetti, known as Marinali (1682-1750), sculptor of considerable artistic value that massively worked decorating many Venetian Villas. Four of these are located inside the church and represent sacred subjects.
AN ANCIENT HISTORY from Giacomo Angarano to the Bianchi Michiel
In 1548 Giacomo Angarano married Bianca Nievo, daughter of Galeazzo and Paola Thiene. In 1588 the premature death of his son Stefano and the consequent demand for the restitution of a substantial dowry by the widow, forced Giacomo Angarano to sell part of his assets, including the Villa in Angarano. The project stops and it will never be completed as planned. The imminent sale to the Venetian Formenti family definitively interrupts the process of the factory and begins the succession of the Villa by women. Cornelia Formenti brings it as a dowry to Gerolamo Molin. His daughter Maria in 1654 married Paolo Gradenigo, senator of the Republic of Venice, and it was Maria Molin who in her will, dated 1669, gave the exact indication for the reconstruction of the Villa. The new project abandons the classic lines of Palladio to follow the much more modern baroque ones, as they appear to us today in their majesty. The works finally ended in the early 1700s.
Once again the villa passed ownership from the Gradenigo to the Pisani to get "uxorio nomine" in the early nineteenth century to the Venetian doge family Michiel. Today the villa is owned by the five sisters Carla, Giovanna, Anna, Maruzza and Isabella Bianchi Michiel who live it with big respect for local traditions and preserve it as an historical asset.
T H E F A R M
The farm with vineyards, olive groves and fields prospered throughout the 1800s, passed the First World War unscathed during which it was at the rear of the front and remained unchanged until the mid-1900s. In the 1960s, a new road through the Quare and began that urban and landscape transformation that has brought us to the situation of our days.
The history of the agricultural production complex is much older than the mid-1500s. In the proximity of the villa, the remains of a rustic villa dating back to the Imperial Roman period (2nd century AD) have come to light: a center of agricultural production and certainly wine, oil and cereals were the main products. Other more ancient settlements dating back to the Paleoveneti are located near the nearby Castellaro hill and date back to the final bronze. The first known document that gives us a portrait of the agricultural landscape of the territory in the Middle Ages is the Regestum possessionum comunis Vincencie of 1262, where we also find the description of some fields with vineyards located in the current appurtenances of the villa Angarano now Bianchi-Michiel. The Register was compiled by the Municipality of Vicenza immediately after the end of the Ezzelini to census the assets located in the Vicenza area.
In the following centuries the agricultural property in the Quare district will remain fragmented but with the pre-eminence of the Angarano and then of their successors to form, with gradual acquisitions, a large undivided property with the villa at the center.
The farm currently includes fifty hectares, of which 8 are vineyards located on the right bank of the Brenta river. The alluvial soil and the night breeze of the Valsugana bring special benefits to both the vine and the olive trees. Thanks to this climatic richness these lands have always been chosen and never abandoned.
Wine, as described by Palladio, has always been produced here. Today “Le Vie Angarano” winery carries on this tradition, deeply rooted in the territory, with dedication and passion.
Villa Angarano produces high-quality EXTRA VIRGIN OIL from the olive groves that grow on the hills surrounding the Villa.