Villa Venezia
Villa Venezia is a historic building in Ortisei in Val Gardena , which the artist Johann Batista Moroder-Lusenberg , also called "Batista de Trinadianesch", built between 1903 and 1905.
history
prehistory
Before 1800 the area between Rezia Street in the center of Ortisei and the Grödner Bach still belonged to the old Planaces farm. The upper blacksmith's house "Pitl-Fever" (little blacksmith) and the old grain mill of Planaces (in Ladin "Mulin da Planaces") stood there. Moroder-Lusenberg's wife Katharina "Trina" Bernardi inherited the Oberschmiedhaus in 1896 from her parents.
The upper smith's house in Pitl-Fever was initially not demolished, but converted to meet the needs of the company after Moroder-Lusenberg's marriage to Trina in 1895. In the first years of his sculpting activity in the Oberschmiedhaus, i.e. from 1895 to 1903, Batista worked in a simple workshop made of wood on the south side of the building. This workshop was called “la berstot dl pere” (the father's workshop) until it was demolished in the 1960s.
The construction of the Villa Venezia
The Venetian style and the historicist building forms of the Neo-Renaissance fascinated Johann Baptist Moroder for a long time. His honeymoon took him to Venice , and the Maritime Republic was the inspiration behind the name of the new building. The construction of the Villa Venezia began in 1903; two years later the construction work was completed.
When he started construction, Moroder-Lusenberg had little capital. Batista financed part of the construction costs through an inheritance he received from his mother, who died at an early age. In the Moroder family (also called Trinadeianesc after their wife) it is said that Batista himself drew the villa, which is rather strange for Ortisei, and did most of the construction work himself. The builder, who is considered hardworking and skillful, also worked as a handyman, artist and decorator. Simple hoisting machines made the job easier. Batista enlarged the old blacksmith's house towards the east up to the former artist's studio, today's Cafe Domino.
The villa during the war years and the first post-war years
During the First World War , Batista, father of three sons, had to go to the front. As a 45-year-old he was briefly at Col di Lana on the hotly contested Dolomite front. The three sons were also at war, the youngest was only 18 years old. During the war years 1915–1916, part of the Austrian General Staff lived in the villa. It was engineers and surveyors who were responsible for the construction of the Val Gardena Railway in the section of the municipality of Ortisei. About seven men slept on the second floor of the villa.
Around the mid-1920s there was so little work for the Val Gardena wood sculptors that the aging and already sick Batista switched to carving small crucifixes and wooden figures. Two of the older sons, Luis and Oswald, emigrated to look for work as sculptors in neighboring countries in Central Europe. Luis moved to Cologne and worked there as a stone sculptor at Cologne Cathedral for a few years . Oswald was the only sculptor in the Moroder de Trinadeianesc family to remain in his father's workshop. Son Konrad lived in the Villa Venezia, the living conditions were modest. After 1927 Konrad worked in the two carpentry workshops on the south side of the villa. He created beautiful furniture, mostly by himself. He was a very hardworking, skilled and versatile craftsman.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, to the left of the apartment door on the first floor, in the former apartment of Batista and Trina, there was a small wood-paneled room called "Pitla Stua" (small room). This once served the many children of Batista as a music room, in which the instruments of the music-loving family could also be placed. Batista's son Johann Franz and daughter Katharina were also organists in the parish church of St. Ulrich.
The Villa Venezia today
In 1933 Konrad Moroder, a son of Johann Baptist, inherited the structurally rather dilapidated villa, which was also burdened with debts. From around 1924 the economic situation in Val Gardena had deteriorated year after year. Brother Walter zu Ronc inherited the workshop building, the studio and a building plot to the east of it. Another brother named Batista had inherited Dominik Holzknecht's old photography studio on the right, next to the villa. At the beginning of the 1960s, during the first building boom in Val Gardena after the end of the war, there was a risk that the dilapidated house could be demolished. The solidarity of the ancestral families with the house of their grandfather or great-grandfather prevented a radical demolition or an inconsistent renovation of the villa. The well-restored villa is now a listed building and is one of the special sights of Ortisei.
Drusus and the councilors
The larger-than-life Roman legionnaire made of wood (5.30 m high) on the northwest side of Villa Venezia represents the Roman general Drusus , the conqueror of the Raetians in Tyrol . Batista owed the idea of carving this historical personality to his brother, the homeland researcher Wilhelm Moroder-Lusenberg . He explained the person and the historical context to Batista. Before making the wooden figure, Batista designed a clay model that served as a template for the sculpture. In addition to the Ladin name “l gran mandl” (the great man), the sculpture is often referred to as “the Roman legionnaire”. This did not entirely correspond to Wilhelm's ideas, as the monumental figure, which is just over 5 m high, does not represent a simple legionnaire in terms of clothing, but a general. The statue is a sculpture that is also known beyond the border of South Tyrol. In 2001 it was cast in bronze to ensure that it remains in place .
literature
- Edgar Moroder: The artist Johann Baptist Moroder-Lusenberg 1870–1932 and the Villa Venezia in Ortisei in Val Gardena . Typak publishing house, Ortisei 2004, ISBN 88-901599-0-1 .
Web links
Coordinates: 46 ° 34 ′ 20.7 " N , 11 ° 40 ′ 32.7" E