Overview
The small statues of dwarfs that line the city walls of the Villa are the reason for the nickname, due to the fact that this was not the only building owned by the Valmarana family in Vicenza and around Vicenza: a way to distinguish it from the others had to be found. As for the statuettes, they were originally not in a row but dispersed throughout the park, which alone would be enough to convince visitors to stop.
It was in 1736 when Giustino Valmarana commissioned Lombard architect Francesco Muttoni to improve the villa he had just bought with his brother. Some twenty years later, Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico were called upon to decorate the villa with frescoes. Giambattista Tiepolo was already at that time an established professional, whom critics of contemporary art history did not hesitate to call "the last great protagonist of monumental decoration in Europe".
The theme of the splendid frescoes are classical mythologies, such as those of the Iliad and the Aeneid, and great classical Italian poems, from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso to Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Quite innovative subject matter for the time can be recognised in the work of his son Giandomenico done in the seven rooms of the Foresteria: Chinese, Gothic and carnivalesque inspirations. In the basement, an "immersive room" recalls the life and events of the place.
