The Villa Malcontenta: Where Vittorio Storaro Found the Fire of the Roman Home

Chapter 03 of Storaro's Rome: the story behind each image of La Civiltà Romana, told from the book by Vittorio Storaro.

Three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro spent five years following the Roman world with a camera. One of his stops was not in Rome at all. It was a quiet river a few miles from Venice.

You reach it on foot, along a lane beside the Brenta. Across the water stands a pale villa with the face of a temple: columns, a triangular pediment, two tall chimneys against the sky. Inside, the owners have chosen to keep the house without electric lighting. When the day goes, the light goes with it.

Storaro received his Oscars in 1980, 1982 and 1988, for Apocalypse Now, Reds and The Last Emperor. In 1988 he stood by this river and made one of the most unusual images in his collection.

"Why is a villa near Venice in a book about Rome? Because the Roman home never died. It came back."

Vittorio Storaro, from his narration of The Villa Malcontenta

A fire kept by a goddess

Storaro's story of this place begins far from Venice, at the very start of Rome. The first Roman home, he tells us, was a cave on a hill, where a she-wolf fed two boys. From the beginning, home meant the hearth: the fire at the centre of the family, the warmth that holds a city together.

In his book La Civiltà Romana, that fire has a guardian. On the Palatine Hill, he writes, burned

"the sacred Fire of the City, kept by the Vestal virgins, in the temple dedicated to their Goddess: Vesta."

Vittorio Storaro, La Civiltà Romana, Chapter II

The fire was never allowed to go out, day or night. For Storaro, that is where the Roman idea of home lives: in a flame, and in the woman who keeps it.

Palladio rebuilds the Roman house

Fifteen centuries later, in the Veneto, the architect Andrea Palladio set out to build the ancient Roman house again. He studied the ruins, read the old writers, and designed villas for the Venetian families who were turning the countryside into farmland.

For the Foscari brothers he built a house on the bank of the Brenta, raised high above the water, with a temple front facing the river. Palladio believed the houses of ancient Rome had fronts like this. He was wrong. But he built it anyway, and the temple front went on to become one of the most copied ideas in Western architecture. The Roman home came back with a temple's face.

Outside, the cold. Inside, the fire.

Look closely at Storaro's photograph and you see two moments in one. Outside: the villa at dusk, bare winter trees, the cold river holding their reflection. Across it all: the inside of the house. Painted vaults, gods and figures, a window, glowing gold like a lamp seen through the trees.

Created with a film camera. A double exposure made directly on the same negative, in a single frame. No Photoshop.

The paintings he captured have their own story. Battista Zelotti, Battista Franco and Bernardino India covered the rooms with frescoes between 1557 and 1575. Centuries later they were whitewashed and lost from sight, and only in the 1970s were they brought back. When Storaro made this photograph, they had only recently returned to the light.

"When I think of the home, I think of the light at dusk. The fire. The lamp. And its colour is a warm orange."

Vittorio Storaro, from his narration of The Villa Malcontenta

Orange, for Storaro, is the light of the hearth and of the woman who keeps it. That is why this villa sits in the chapter of his book given to the empresses and the feminine. It is not a monument. It is a hearth.

When you visit Villa Malcontenta

• Where: Via dei Turisti 9, Malcontenta di Mira, on the Brenta, about half an hour by bus from Piazzale Roma in Venice.
• Getting there: there is no parking at the villa. Park in the village of Malcontenta and walk the pedestrian lane, Via dei Turisti.
• When: the villa keeps a seasonal schedule, opening in spring, with limited days and hours. Check the villa's own website before you go. Visits outside opening times can sometimes be booked ahead.
• Look up: in the central hall, Zelotti painted Astraea, goddess of justice, rising back to Olympus.
• Ask about the name: "La Malcontenta" is older than the villa. A popular legend tells of an unhappy lady of the Foscari family, but it is not established fact. Another explanation points to the river, so badly contained (mal contenuta) that it flooded again and again.
• Then do what Storaro did: stay on the riverbank until dusk, when the light turns warm orange, and imagine the fire inside.

The artwork

The Villa Malcontenta by Vittorio Storaro, from La Civiltà Romana, is available as a photo print on fine art paper, an acrylic print and a canvas print: a hearth to bring into your own home.

Questions about Villa Malcontenta and this image

Why is a villa near Venice in a book about Rome?
Because Palladio built his villas as a return of the ancient Roman house. In La Civiltà Romana, Storaro follows the Roman idea of home, the hearth, all the way to the Brenta.

Why is it called La Malcontenta?
The name is older than the villa. A legend of an unhappy Foscari lady is popular but not established; another explanation is the badly contained, flooding river.

Was the image edited in Photoshop?
No. It was created with a film camera: a double exposure made directly on the same negative, in a single frame.

Who painted the frescoes inside?
Battista Zelotti, Battista Franco and Bernardino India, between 1557 and 1575.

Storaro's Rome follows the images of La Civiltà Romana one by one, each with its place, its story from Storaro's book and his narration. See all the stories or listen to every story told so far.