Molina di Malo is located at the gates of the municipality of Thiene. Starting from Malo, it is enough to travel a few kilometers along provincial road 48 to reach the district.
Along the way, on the left side, incorporated into the architectural modifications of subsequent centuries, lies what remains of the gothic Castle of the Da Porto family.
Passing through the arch crowned with Ghibelline merlons, marked by the coat of arms of the Colleoni, the family that succeeded the Da Porto after the latter's extinction in the second decade of the 1800s, one accesses the 15th-century Corte Granda and the unfinished Villa Da Porto.
Dominating the courtyard are ten trunks of columns made of bricks, which with capitals and entablatures exceeded thirteen meters in height, the only traces of the facade of a grand country residence, never realized, designed by Andrea Palladio.
On the stone bases of the columns, next to the name of Iseppo Porto, there are engraved numbers that seem to indicate the year of construction of the villa.
The date, which is not very legible, is nonetheless attributable, as almost unanimously recognized by scholars, to 1572.
Lower porticoes, in the shape of a quarter circle, were supposed to connect on both sides the main body of the estate with the agricultural annexes.
The building was never completed as both Iseppo and Andrea died in 1580. According to some scholars, work on this villa was suspended due to the expenses incurred by the Da Porto family in erecting the palace in Vicenza, or in any case to rebuild it after the fire that destroyed it, but, until now, no document confirms this hypothesis.
