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Palace Galleries Mountain Lions

Palace Galleries Mountain Lions is a Baroque building located in Vicenza and dating back to 1678. It houses an important museum (known as the Gallerie d'Italia - Palazzo Leoni Montanari) in which some masterpieces of Venetian painting of the eighteenth century and a collection of ancient Russian icons.

Inside it houses an important museum (known as the Gallerie d'Italia - Palazzo Leoni Montanari) in which some masterpieces of Venetian painting of the eighteenth century and a collection of ancient Russian icons are collected.

The precious collection traces all the pictorial genres that made Venice at the center of the international art scene in the eighteenth century.

In a show all en plein air, the extraordinary views - whose perspective and suggestions of light can be admired - portray Venice and other cities of northern Italy, created by great masters such as Canaletto, Luca Carlevarijs, Francesco Guardi, Michele Marieschi, Francesco Albotto, Francesco Zuccarelli.

Famous is the corpus of paintings by Pietro Longhi and his followers, which depict the Venetian society of the time in small-format canvases in bright colors and with a strong taste for the news.

Of particular interest is also The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Agostino Fasolato, a virtuosic sculpture composed of sixty figures carved in a single piece of Carrara marble.

The palace was born from the need of the Leoni Montanari family to promote themselves socially within the Vicenza nobility. During the second half of the seventeenth century the family had in fact earned a solid position in the production and trade of fabrics and the construction of the building served as a testimony to its ambitions of social emancipation. The palace was built where the Montanari Lions already owned their own buildings, welcoming inside the house rooms for the spinning of silk. This choice had repercussions on the style of the façade and the interiors, which therefore broke away from the Renaissance classicism of Andrea Palladio.

The construction was completed in two distinct phases and ended only in the second half of the eighteenth century. The project was probably signed by the Lombard architect Giuseppe Marchi and by the Borrella building company. Notable artists were called to work such as the painters Giuseppe Alberti and Ludovico Dorigny, the sculptor Angelo Molinari and the family of Andrea Paracca, renowned plasterers of Valsolda. The decorations of 1692 had Greek-Roman mythology as their theme and were made with frescoes by Paolo Pagani.

In 1808 the palace was inherited by Count Girolamo Egidio Velo on the death of his grandmother Laura Conti Montanari. He made important and prestigious archaeological discoveries, he was a passionate collector of Greek and Roman antiquities. The count wanted to enrich the decoration of the noble floor of the building with stuccos and frescoes in the neoclassical style, partially distorting the baroque structure.

After a few further changes of ownership, in 1908 the prestigious townhouse became the property of Banca Cattolica Vicentina, which in 1930 became Banca Cattolica del Veneto. The bank made Palazzo Leoni Montanari its registered office, establishing the general management there. The building was fortunately spared from the violent bombings that, during the Second World War, hit this area of ​​the city.

In January 1990, Banco Ambrosiano Veneto took over and chose to free the building from the functions of representation and to make it the seat of the only activities related to the cultural policy of the institute. During the nineties, Palazzo Leoni Montanari was the site of numerous cultural initiatives such as exhibitions, conferences and concerts.

The property is now owned by the Intesa Sanpaolo bank which has included it within the Gallerie d'Italia circuit.

Map: Palace Galleries Mountain Lions