Villa Callegari is located in the heart of the upper village of Arquà Petrarca, next to the Oratory of the Holy Trinity and the Loggia dei Vicari, overlooking a courtyard with panoramic views of the valley below. The building, dating from the late 5th century, stands on the remains of an earlier medieval construction, which according to undocumented traditions was the residence of the physician Jacopo d'Arquà in the 14th century.
The villa has a simple and elegant structure, with a portal on the ground floor and five windows on the main floor, in the center of which is a small stone balcony. Some sources, although not supported by official documents, attribute a renovation of the villa in the first half of the seventeenth century to the Venetian architect Baldassare Longhena. The favorable location on the edge of a south-facing knoll allows magnificent views of the Cero and Castello hills from the rooms and courtyard of the villa.
The villa is named after Adolfo Callegari (1882-1948), a distinguished inhabitant, scholar of the Euganean Hills, janitor of the nearby House of Petrarch, and for 27 years director of the Atestino National Museum.
Today, Villa Callegari is a significant example of Arquà Petrarca's historic architecture, offering a glimpse into the village's aristocratic past, evidence of the passage of personalities who contributed to the cultural enhancement of the region.
The Foresteria Callegari
The foresteria was the rustic annex of the nearby villa of the same name and is therefore linked to its history, until the municipality of Arquà bought this adjacency, while the manor house was bought by the current family that lives there, the Attardi.
The ground floor is devoid of decoration and therefore probably had a rustic function. This is home to the Municipal Library, an information desk on the area and a meeting room for the municipality's associations.
On the first floor are rooms that are truly noteworthy from an artistic point of view. They must have housed the distinguished guests of the adjoining villa, as there are precious wooden ceilings, decorated with elaborate tromp l'oeil architectural perspectives and heraldic coats of arms. They may have been partially or entirely made by Callegari, who was also a painter.
Coating the ceilings is a planking. In the larger projecting one, along the perimeter figures the illusion of an awkward balustrade running all around in a very scroungy centripetal perspective. The recessed center of the mighty wooden planking, on the other hand, flaunts two lush decorations derived from the motif of the central rose window.