The Castle of Thiene stands in the center of the city, surrounded by a garden, and is one of the most significant examples of late 15th century villa on the model of the Gothic-flowered Venetian palaces. It is the most significant gothic building of the fifteenth century. built in the Vicenza area for use as a civil residence. The only example of its kind and cornerstone in the evolution of Venetian villas, combines the characteristics of the castle with those of the Venetian palace and in particular of the "home-warehouse": housing and storage.
Castello di Thiene History
The Porto family has appeared in Thiene since the mid-fourteenth century with land and houses. It is up to Francesco, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the beginning of the current factory and the construction of the noble chapel consecrated in 1476. The property then passed in 1507 to his nephew Francesco junior, a man of arms appointed in 1532 by the doge Andrea Gritti, general collateral of the Republic. It is to these that the major works of enlargement and embellishment of the palace are due, finished around 1525, after the devastation of the war of the league of Cambrai.
In 1541 Francesco Porto transmits the property, in the absence of direct heirs, to his nephew Giovanni, who between 1560 and 1570 calls Paolo Veronese, Giambattista Zelotti and Gianantonio Fasolo (Veronese pupils) to paint the interiors of the villa.
The Porto family retained ownership of the castle until 1816, when it was inherited by the Colleoni family, who in turn maintained the property for three generations until 1918, when it was finally inherited by the family of Thiene, the current owner of the castle.
The Palazzo is annexed by an artistic eighteenth-century stable, the work of Muttoni, which consists of a vast hall comprising 36 columns surmounted by putti, wooden mangers carved for 32 horses and the hammered marble floor and herringbone bricks.