Senso by Luchino Visconti
Villa Godi Malinverni chosen as the film location
Villa Godi Malinverni chosen as the film location
Villa Godi Malinverni and its Palladian Gardens were also part of the set of one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian neorealism: the film Senso by Luchino Visconti.
Filmed in 1953 and released in 1954, the movie is a cult classic of Italian cinema, renowned for its use of color, its cinematography inspired by 19th-century Italian masterpieces, and the masterful performances of two stars of the time, Alida Valli and Farley Granger.
The film, based on the 1883 novella "Dallo scartafascio segreto della contessa Livia" by Arrigo Boito, is set during the Third Italian War of Independence in Veneto in 1866, the year the region was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. It tells the tumultuous story of Countess Livia Serpieri, who falls in love with the Austrian lieutenant Franz Mahler. Initially, the countess, married to an Austrian nobleman, supports the Italian cause by assisting her cousin, a fervent pro-Italian nobleman, in funding the anti-Austrian rebels. However, her extramarital affair with Lieutenant Mahler sweeps her into a whirlwind of passions that ultimately upends her life. The backdrop of the film is the Veneto war of the time and the Italian patriotic fervor that would forever change that world.
The film was shot in various locations, including Rome, Venice, Valeggio sul Mincio, and Villa Godi Malinverni. In the film, the villa and its gardens become "the villa of Aldeno" where Countess Serpieri flees with her husband from Venice once the war breaks out, and where the most romantic and passionate sequences between her and Lieutenant Mahler were filmed. The interiors of the villa provided the backdrop for numerous scenes in the central part of the film: the Sala di Venere (Venus Room) and the Sala dell'Olimpo (Hall of Olympus) were transformed into Livia's bedroom and boudoir; the Sala dei Cesari (Hall of Caesars) and the Sala delle Muse (Hall of the Muses) were used for the scene in which the countess hands over the money to Lieutenant Mahler, and the central hall served as the Serpieri family's living room.
Today, the film stands as an extraordinary historical document, offering a glimpse into the gardens before the arrival of the Malinverni family and the surrounding landscape before the changes of the second half of the century. Thanks to the skillful set design by Ottavio Scotti, who brought original 19th-century furniture and decorations to the villa, the film also provides a portrayal of what life in the villa might have been like for the 19th-century nobility. The memory of the filming is still vivid among the elderly members of the local population, who recall having contributed both to the film's set design and as extras.
