Villa Grimani Morosini, Martellago

The Priuli, Grimani, Morosini villa known as Ca' della Nave is a 16th-century Venetian villa located in Martellago, in the province of Venice.

The villa was probably built between 1566 and 1575 by the Venetian Priuli family, the first owners of the villa. A family that gave as many as three doges to the Serenissima. The architectural form of the building, the name of the architect of which is unknown, presents a square plan structure on three floors and with the facade adorned with frescoes by Giambattista Zelotti; while elegant Istrian stone adorns its windows and loggias. After 1620, the Priuli family was forced to sell many of their properties including the villa in Martellago. The villa was bought by the Grimani of the "Servi di Santo Stefano" branch, a patrician family among the richest and most powerful in the Serenissima. It was renovated by the Grimani themselves in the early 18th century. In this period the two barchesse were built, built perpendicular to the palace, a layout this uncommon in Venetian villas; the west one used exclusively for guest quarters, accommodation for illustrious "foreign" guests; the frescoes are the work of Francesco Fontebasso, a pupil of Sebastiano Ricci. The eastern barchessa, whose interiors are painted by Francesco Zugno, extends to the "palazzetto" a tower-shaped building with a portico, a famous meeting place for visitors in the past, in whose second floor coffee was offered to guests. The building joins the adjacent pre-existing cellars and at the opposite end ends with another three-story "colombara" tower connected to the granary. Next to the barchessa, the "subfactor's cottage" was built in 1807, which housed the oratory's manse priest. The various buildings such as the dovecote, the Oratory and the numerous rustic buildings formed a kind of quadrangular square of rare architectural continuity between the manor house and its dépandances. Also in the early eighteenth century, work also began on rearranging the garden in the fashion of the time; there are two documents with somewhat similar plans, the first designed by architects Mattia De Rossi and Felice Della Greca, probably commissioned by the Procurator of St. Mark's Antonio Grimani, ambassador to Rome from 1665 to 1671; but according to other scholars the garden is instead the work of French architect André Godeau; the garden was completed in 1706. It also has a splendid park with some old tree species, among which stands out a farnia from the mid-19th century whose dendrometric data are: 27 meters high, 23.50 m. canopy and with an imposing diameter of 412 cm. During the stay of N.H. Antonio Grimani, who retired to live in Martellago, the villa hosted numerous patrician and ecclesiastical personalities; probably also Pietro Grimani doge of Venice from 1741 to 1752. Also in 1760 Carlo Goldoni himself, who dedicated his comedy "L'amante di sé stesso" to the N.H. The nineteenth-century description made by Francesco S. Fapanni of some corners of the villa is romantic: It was very beautiful to see open in the light of a spring day these stately rooms smelling the gratissimo odor of the cedars, which made an acute angle with the end of the Foresteria. Sitting at the rezzo on those canapés on summer days, smelling those citrus trees, and enjoying that quiet

The complex entered the list of bound Venetian villas through the merit of Pietro Paolazzi, with notification of 30/12/1954 and subsequent of 30/04/1966. Istituto Regionale Ville Venete cod. IRVV 00000663