The Villa Tauro complex stands prominently against the Centenere countryside, in an environmental context that has completely maintained its agricultural appearance.
It is one of the earliest examples of a Belluno manor house from the 17th century. It was built by the Tauro family between the first and second halves of the 1600s. In 1811, it was owned by Francesco Tauro, and in the tax records of that year, the fish pond fed by the Buda stream is described. Around it, there were vegetable gardens, meadows, orchards, fields, and woods. Among what remains, the art collections of Count Tauro, arranged in a vaulted room of the rustic wing and in the corresponding porch, features the Mile Stone of the Claudia Augusta Altinate, discovered in the parish church of Cesio in 1786.
The complex is now characterized by an "L"-shaped development. A detached building, which defined a closed courtyard, was located on the other side but was demolished in the first half of the 1900s to allow for an opening to the countryside. To the north, in addition to the chapel, there is the addition, made after World War I, of the "ritonda," connected to the kitchen. Isolated to the east is the more recent barn-barn, now out of use.
The park sloping down towards the valley of Caorame, arranged in the second decade of the 1800s, featured typical elements of 19th-century picturesque landscaping: avenues, groves, a heart-shaped fish pond or lake, and an English-style forest with oaks of which only young specimens remain today. The chapel, commissioned by Francesco Tauro and dedicated to Saint Francis, was probably completed in 1694, a date inscribed on the bell.
The façade is in Baroque style, and the interior, with a rectangular hall, features a wooden altar and a canvas by Luigi Cima. Thanks mainly to the current owners' passion for the villa and the countryside in which it is set, it revives the splendors of the past, with its interior furnishings, regularly mown meadows, and trimmed hedges.
The villa is not open to visitors.
Visitable only with reservation
