Located along the Canale Battaglia in Rivella, near a junction of major 16th-century waterways known as the “Botte del Pigozzo”, this complex was built for the Contarini family, in all likelihood some time before 1588. After a period of ownership by the Maldura family, in 1891 the current owners, the Emo Capodilista family, purchased the property. The garden’s light-filled geometry is set off by the formal garden at the front, redesigned in 1966 by Giuseppina Pignatelli, who chose to settle here with her family, and combined the initials of the names of the two owners, Andrea Emo and Giuseppina Pignatelli. Two large rose gardens alongside the parterreare bordered by long fishponds originally used for fish rearing. Today, they are filled with water lilies and bordered by irises and calla lilies, backed by a grove of majestic bald cypresses. Behind the villa is a meadow garden that bears the family’s coat of arms at its centre, lined by pruned hedges and flanked by paths with borders of flowers cleverly alternating roses, lavender, peonies, tulips, hyacinths, and herbaceous perennials – a rare example of borders in a Veneto-style garden, in what is a clear reference to the tradition of English cottage gardens. The complex features a number of other interesting elements: a hornbeam gallery that encloses the garden on three sides, a long avenue of Magnolia grandiflora that opens onto an incomparable view of the nearby Rocca di Monselice, and a row of cypress poplars, a recurring sight in the Veneto countryside.