The Casino Zane: between nature and culture

An 18^th century engraving by Luca Carlevarijs commemorates the vast and sumptuous garden that originally separated the Palazzo Zane of San Stin from the casino and the building commissioned by Marino Zane to house the rich family library. Designed by Antonio Gaspari, the forms of this noble Venetian casino testify to the persistence, in the late 17^th century, of a character of extreme compositional balance, alongside a clearly celebratory intent, in a fruitful dialogue between melodramatic culture and organized nature. The logic of measure, functional to an architecture conceived as a music hall, is reflected in the definition of a natural spatiality, where sculptures and geometric-shaped plant borders stage the garden as a permanent spectacle.