Palazzo Monti Giacobbi is one of the most important historical testimonies of Candide. The building represents the connection between the history of the village, its most influential families, and the artistic heritage of Alto Comelico.
Built in the first half of the seventeenth century by the Monti family, notaries and wealthy timber merchants, art enthusiasts and patrons for generations, the palace preserves interiors decorated with cycles of tempera paintings on mythological subjects created by Giovanni De Min and his school, when the painter was hosted at the palace while working on the altarpiece of the church.
In 1797, Osvaldo Monti, as ambassador of the Venetian Republic, was sent to Passariano, as part of the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Campoformido, tasked with negotiating with Napoleon. His oratory skills were such that he obtained important concessions to safeguard the economy of Cadore, including the restitution of the forestry properties of the Regole.
A cultured and enlightened man, he owned the first edition of the Encyclopédie by Diderot, which enriched the library of the palace and collected all knowledge in its thirty-nine volumes.
An atmosphere that can still be felt today upon crossing the threshold of the palace, surrounded by the alpine pastures and woods of Comelico, almost in contrast with the refinement of the interiors. Here, the landscape becomes predominant and accompanies the visitor in a continuous dialogue between nature, history, and art. Every window of the palace is a picture of nature.
Palazzo Monti Giacobbi represents one of the most significant examples of the civilization of the Venetian villas developed at high altitude, a rare testimony of how the architectural and cultural model of the mainland villa found expression even in the alpine valleys of Cadore.
