The story
Seventeen stone dwarfs line the garden wall of this villa on a hillside just outside Vicenza, and they gave it its nickname, ai Nani, which means at the dwarfs. A local legend makes them the servants of a dwarf princess, turned to stone by grief at her death. They were probably carved by Francesco Uliaco, most likely after drawings by Giandomenico Tiepolo.
The Tiepolo name is the real reason to come. In 1757 the owner, Giustino Valmarana, hired the Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico to fresco the house. Between them they covered 13 rooms in the main villa and the guest house with more than 800 square metres of painting.
The father took the main villa and gave each room a book. In the room of the Iliad, Minerva holds Achilles back as he reaches for his sword against Agamemnon, and on another wall two heralds lead the girl Briseis away to Agamemnon. Other rooms draw on Virgil's Aeneid and on the Italian epics of Ariosto and Tasso, among them a scene of Angelica carving her lover Medoro's name into a tree.
Giandomenico had a freer hand in the guest house, where every room but one is his. He painted peasants at rest, carnival figures and a room of fanciful Chinese scenes. The villa still belongs to the Valmarana family and is open to visitors.
