The Cerchiari family reached its peak in the first half of the 18th century, after Giovanni Marzio (Gianmarzio) Cerchiari, an archaeologist and writer, purchased a place in the Vicenza council in 1658. The son, Carlo Cerchiari, had the villa built in Isola Vicentina in 1722, probably by the architect Francesco Muttoni.
The building is constructed according to the typical styles of Vicentine Rococo, where the scheme based on the four pilasters at the center of the project finds a mannerist distortion in the Ionic entablature of hyperbolic height. Below the pediment, where the coat of arms of the Cerchiari now lost once stood, there is the inscription: CAROLUS CERCHIARIVS IO. MARTII FIL./MDCCXXII.
The façade is animated by the two columns that support the central balcony where the two flights of stairs converge. Inside, the large central hall and the smaller rooms on the sides are enriched with stuccoes that lavishly frame the four doors. The central round above the door contained canvases, now lost.
Inside one of the side rooms, a charming little temple in aedicule style, with a sixteenth-century taste, is built into the wall, which likely came from another earlier construction.
Thanks to the restoration in the early 2000s, today the villa is the new home of the Municipal Library. In addition to the three original floors from the 18th century, there is also a new two-story wing for public use. Particular attention has been given to the choice of furnishings and colors of the décor, respecting the principles of Feng Shui, an ancient Chinese discipline that studies the relationships between personal characteristics and the energetic qualities of environments to seek harmony and balance.
