A sixteenth-century Venetian villa in the middle of Oderzo, built for Alessandro Contarini, passed to the Condulmer and the Foscolo, and since 1994 the home of the paintings of Alberto Martini, the symbolist from Oderzo.
At a glance
Palazzo Foscolo, which the plaque on its wall still calls Ca’ Contarini, stands on via Garibaldi in the centre of Oderzo. It was built in the sixteenth century for Alessandro Contarini in the form of a Venetian villa of the time: a tripartite front, arched windows on the piano nobile and a central loggia with balusters, with decoration attributed to the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria. From the Contarini it passed to the Condulmer and then to Daulo Augusto Foscolo, and stayed with the Foscolo until the countess Anna Foscolo, the last of the line, who left it in 1917 and died in 1942. The municipality bought it in 1978 and restored it between 1983 and 1988. Since the summer of 1994 its top floor houses the Pinacoteca Civica Alberto Martini; the building is also the seat of the Fondazione Oderzo Cultura, of the modern art gallery GAMCO, of the Museo del Vetro d’Artista and of the tourist office.
Key facts
- Built: 16th century, for Alessandro Contarini; decoration attributed to Alessandro Vittoria (1524–1608)
- Owners: Contarini, Condulmer, Foscolo; the last countess, Anna Foscolo, left in 1917 and died in 1942
- Garden: commissioned by Alessandro Contarini between 1672 and 1681
- Municipal: since 1978; restored 1983–1988
- Pinacoteca Alberto Martini: founded 1970 after the 1967 gift of Martini’s Self-portrait (1911) by his widow Maria Petringa; on the top floor since 1994; about 700 works
- Also here: GAMCO (since 2008), the Collezione Attilia Zava – Museo del Vetro d’Artista (since 2021), the archaeological museum Eno Bellis in the outbuilding, the tourist office
- GPS: 45.77865, 12.49114 · Open in Google Maps
History
Oderzo was a Roman town, Opitergium, and in the Venetian centuries a market town of the Treviso plain where patrician families built villas on the main street. The Contarini house is the finest of them, and the busts and portals attributed to Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor of the Venetian Renaissance, give it a date in the second half of the sixteenth century.
Alberto Martini (1876–1954), born in Oderzo, was one of the Italian symbolists and a forerunner of surrealism, known for his illustrations of Poe and Dante. His widow’s gift of the Self-portrait in 1967 started the civic collection, which grew to some seven hundred works by Martini and by painters of the region, and found its seat in the palace in 1994. The Lions Club plaque of 1992 on the wall records the three families of owners.
What you see
A long white two-storey front on the street with a ground-floor arcade of round arches, a central balcony with balusters on the piano nobile and a projecting cornice; a small marble plaque near the corner reads Ca’ Contarini, poi Condulmer e Foscolo, secc. XVI–XVII, ora Museo Civico. The photographs were taken at sunset along via Garibaldi.
Nearby
- Chiesa della Maddalena — the medieval church on the same street
Gallery
Sources
- Fondazione Oderzo Cultura — Pinacoteca, storia e sede: the construction for Alessandro Contarini, the Venetian villa form and Alessandro Vittoria, the Condulmer and Foscolo owners, 1942, the purchase of 1978, the Pinacoteca since 1994, the gift of 1967, the 700 works
- Cultura Veneto — Pinacoteca Civica Alberto Martini: the restoration of 1983–1988, the foundation of 1970, Martini’s dates and works, GAMCO 2008, the Museo del Vetro d’Artista 2021, the AMART archive
- Scopri Oderzo — Palazzo Foscolo: the sequence of owners from Rossetti and Zorzi to Contarini, Condulmer and Foscolo, the garden of 1672–1681, Anna Foscolo in 1917, the institutions housed today and the address
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Become a Cultural Heritage Online photographer
Share your photos of places: they stay published under your name as the author. The more they're seen, the more you get noticed — and soon a contest will reward the most appreciated photos.
Log in or sign up free to add a photoIs this page about you?
This page is read by travellers and heritage enthusiasts who find it on Google. Tell us how you are connected to this place and we will take it from there.