The Nani Mocenigo villa is one of the Renaissance villas that adorn the Polesine and is considered by Canda, a small center in the province of Rovigo, as the most magnificent among the various residences left by the Venetian lords of the 16th century.
The date of the beginning of construction is uncertain, but accredited documents place it around 1580.
The author is probably Scamozzi, an architect and student of Palladio, but some also believe it to be the work of Longhena.
It overlooks the Tartaro River and presents two facades—one from the 1500s to the north and one from the 1700s to the south; the interior, heavily damaged by a fire in 1946, features various frescoes concentrated in the staircase and in the two front rooms of the main floor.
In Canda, it is said that Villa Nani Mocenigo is linked to the legend of the “Sad Countess” who probably still wanders, as a ghost, through the sumptuous rooms of the residence.
The story dates back to the 1600s when a Countess Nani residing in Venice was left by her beloved.
Desperate, she fell into such sadness that she was thought to have gone mad. Her brother Giovanni ordered her to retreat with her Spanish lady-in-waiting to Canda to find peace and serenity. Months passed, but her grief did not subside. One beautiful day, as if by magic, she became cheerful again and began to organize parties and receive guests. One day the two women left the residence to go to the blacksmith, and someone heard them ordering "rasuri" (razors).
At the receptions, the countess, beautiful and gracious, won the hearts of many men and generously reciprocated, but after a night of love, the unfortunate lover would disappear. It soon began to be said that the countess threw her lovers into the well of razors and that the poor souls ended up in the nearby Canal Bianco filleted like fish. Was it revenge, a pathology, or uncontrollable pain? Who knows, it has never been known, nor will it ever be known. One thing is certain: one fine day, both the countess and her lady-in-waiting disappeared.
Probably a more cunning lover discovered the clumsy game and took revenge according to the saying: “MORS TUA VITA MEA!”
