Villa Trissino is an incomplete aristocratic villa designed by Andrea Palladio, situated in the hamlet of Meledo. It was intended for the brothers Ludovico and Francesco Trissino. It should not to be confused with Villa Trissino at Cricoli, which is 20 km away, just outside Vicenza.
Villa Trissino, like most of the Palladian villas, was to be the centre of an agricultural estate built for an aristocratic family. What survives at Meledo is two sections of the villa's extending colonnade, which would have been used for the utilitarian functions, something like a farmyard.
At the end of the wing in the photo there is a dovecote, a feature also found at Villa Barbaro. The dovecote of Villa Trissino is decorated with frescoes, indicating that even within the utilitarian portions of the villa, great care was given to create aesthetic beauty. The dovecote tower was frescoed with grotesques by Eliodoro Forbicini (a Veronese painter mentioned by Vasari), who also worked in Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericati and Palazzo Thiene. It is an evident sign that the building’s function was not just utilitarian.
At Villa Trissino, the twenty-first century visitor will find no Palladian house, only the start of the two extending wings can be seen.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.