Villa Forni Cerato

Villa Forni Cerato was built around 1565 by reworking an existing building, commissioned by Girolamo Forni, a wealthy timber merchant but without noble title, a more unique than rare case for Palladian villas. Forni had business relations with Andrea Palladio as a supplier of timber, and this is one of the reasons most critics attribute the design of this villa to Palladio himself; the villa's design is also included in "The Constructions and Designs of Andrea Palladio" by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi.
It is likely that the dry minimalism of the building reflected the bourgeois social status of its owner.
The building has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1996.
The language of the Villa has generated doubts about its actual Palladian authorship, as well as the simple plan of the building. In reality, the Villa is the result of the restructuring of the pre-existing house and the perspective should be reversed, recognizing Palladio's intelligence in transforming constrained limitations into expressive opportunities.
At the time, the Villa had rich sculptural decoration, partly documented work by Alessandro Vittoria. The nearby farmhouses and the dovecote are in ruins. Villa Forni Cerato has always been the subject of study and historiographical analysis.