View of a room on the first floor

The Villa Cornaro was commissioned from Palladio by Giorgio Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman. The construction began in 1553, and in the following year the Cornaro family began living in the central portion, although the wings and the second story of the loggia had not yet been built. These were added later, during different periods, one beginning in 1569, and the other in 1588, the latter under the direction of Vincenzo Scamozzi.

During the 1588 work phase, Scamozzi had Camillo Mariani create stucco statues for the central hall, depicting two renowned members of the Cornaro family, Caterina, queen of Cyprus, and her husband James II Lusignan. It was not until the early eighteenth century that Andrea Cornaro decided to provide the villa interiors with pictorial decoration. In 1716, he engaged Mattia Bortoloni to paint six rooms on the first floor and two small rooms on the second.

The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The style of the fresco cycle is surprising, its originality distances it from any work the painter would create in the future.