My reputation, at the time, would have been based on my ability to draw and design works that, after my death, would become the testimony of my artistic talent. I could never have foreseen it and never wanted to be proud of my works; I did what seemed most architecturally right, always acting in complete humility. I never wanted to be so proud of my works. My villas, for their part, in addition to being centers of land ownership, had to represent a place of health, wellness, study, meditation... What about a villa of the caliber of the one I designed for the Caldogno family? Back then I was a friend of many Venetian patrician families, as well as the Caldogno themselves. This was a noble family from Vicenza who, one day, asked me to work on a pre-existing structure and to design a new body for their country house. It was beautiful what I was doing; staying there, in the heart of Veneto countryside, devising new forms for the work that had to be born only with the mere use of my wits. But it would be a mistake to think that it is all my doing; most of my creations owe everything to the past, to the teachings of the Ancients; without them, how could I have conceived what I have conceived? - My reputation, at the time, would have been based on my ability to draw and design works that, after my death, would become the testimony of my artistic talent. I could never have foreseen it and never wanted to be proud of my works; I did what seemed most architecturally right, always acting in complete humility. I never wanted to be so proud of my works. My villas, for their part, in addition to being centers of land ownership, had to represent a place of health, wellness, study, meditation... What about a villa of the caliber of the one I designed for the Caldogno family? Back then I was a friend of many Venetian patrician families, as well as the Caldogno themselves. This was a noble family from Vicenza who, one day, asked me to work on a pre-existing structure and to design a new body for their country house. It was beautiful what I was doing; staying there, in the heart of Veneto countryside, devising new forms for the work that had to be born only with the mere use of my wits. But it would be a mistake to think that it is all my doing; most of my creations owe everything to the past, to the teachings of the Ancients; without them, how could I have conceived what I have conceived?
