There was a time when owning a spice meant being able to afford a rich and sumptuous residence, something that would remain impressed on those who visited, something valuable and signed by none other than the great Andrea Palladio.
This was the case for Taddeo Gazzotti, a salt merchant, who in 1533 came into possession of what is now Villa Grimani Curti, in the locality of Bertesina in Vicenza. And he asked Palladio to make that tower building into a dwelling suitable for his family. The architect immediately set to work, giving the building a T-shaped plan and enriching it with classical details, as is his custom, as well as incorporating adjacent buildings into the project.
But business does not always go well and the Factory is stopped, due to the ruin of Gazzotti. The Villa then entered the hands of Girolamo Grimani in 1550, and then went from hand to hand, losing its T-shaped plan and acquiring the external stairs. A great deal of renovations, in short, that made the geometric Palladian harmonies of the interiors wobble, but that with a wise work of recovery were later partially recovered.
Very little remains of the past splendor of the project, but concentrating well, while looking at it from the outside, one notices the grooves on the bricks, the classical columns, the lost sumptuousness, one can still perceive the enthusiasm of that salt merchant who wanted for himself the symbol of the refined cultural caliber that only a Palladian building could give him, but who had to succumb to the unfortunate events of life.
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