Villa Valmarana (also known as Valmarana Bressan) is a patrician villa at Vigardolo, Monticello Conte Otto. The building is attributed to Andrea Palladio on the basis of an extant drawing of the villa that is undoubtedly by the great architect.
The villa was constructed during the 1540s, so it is one of Palladio's earlier works. It was commissioned by two cousins of the Valmarana family. The layout of the rooms suggests that Palladio's mandate was to provide accommodation for two nuclear families. The design also shows the influence of buildings from antiquity, which Palladio had, no doubt, seen on his first visit to Rome in 1541. The villa is decorated with frescoes, some of which date from the sixteenth century; they are more or less contemporaneous with the original occupation of the building.
In 1996 UNESCO included the building in the World Heritage Site named 'City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto'.
References:The Château du Lude is one of the many great châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. Le Lude is the most northerly château of the Loire Valley and one of the last important historic castles in France, still inhabited by the same family for the last 260 years. The château is testimony to four centuries of French architecture, as a stronghold transformed into an elegant house during the Renaissance and the 18th century. The monument is located in the valley of Le Loir. Its gardens have evolved throughout the centuries.