From the colli Asolani to Castelfranco, a suggestive itinerary on the discovery of beautiful landscapes and of places of art and culture. Asolo the “city of a hundred horizons”, where everything is enchanted, since always golden refuge of artists, poets painters; Possagno and the masterworks of Antonio Canova; San Zenone of the Ezzelini and it’s manors; Altivole with the Barco of Caterina Corsaro; Villa Barbaro at Maser and Villa Emo at Fanzolo, masterpieces of Andrea Palladio; and more manors, churches, towns until Castelfranco, the beautiful walled city that gave the Christmases to Giorgione.

the small town of Possagno is located at the foot of the Veneto pre-Alps, in the middle of a green valley.
Famous for being the birth place of the artist Antonio Canova, it welcomes the visitor with the imposing and wonderful spectacle of the cupola and the pronas of the Tempio Canoviano with its snow-white silhouette that dominates the town centre.

The vegetation o Possagno and all the mountainous area of Grappa is quite varied, depending on the altitude: the chestnut tree is dominat but you can also find acacia, beech, ash, elm and hazel trees.

The origins of Possagno go back the distant times: in the hamlet of Steggio, traces of life from the neozoic era have been found with iteresting palaeontological remains. Other remains suggest the passage of neo-neolithic and paleoveneto populations in all the Valcavasia area.

The existence of a Roman camp and of a medieval fort has been confirmed.
Possagno was mentioned for the first time in 1076 in an deed of gift in favoir of an abbot. In that period Possagno was dominated by the Rover family of a German origin, who possessed many properties in the whole province. With their demise. Possagno ended up under the authority of Asolo. In 1388, after the brief periof of control by the tyrant Ezzelino III Da Romano, Possagno and all the the Asolo area passed under the domination of the Serenissima Repubblica of Venice.
Subsequently Possagno became a vacation destination for the lords of the whole province. Some even chose to move there permanently. Paceful yars followed until 1797, the year in qhich the French arrived under the command of Napoleon.

Possagno is proud both of the art treasures that it preserves and of its industries: the brick and the tile factories and the stone quarries from which numerous workshops pf sculptors and decorators benefit.

The town is home to two important schools: the primary middle and secondary schools of the Cavanis Fathers, and the state hotel school.

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The Museo Canoviano of Possagno presents a connected series of exhibition buildings from different periods and numerous collections of the works of Antonio Canova.

The 19th Century, concived by the Venetian architet Francesco Lazzari, commissioned by Monsignor Sartori and completed in 1836, the 19th century wing has high and solemn barrel-vault ceiling divided into three sections.

The light arrives from three skylights at the top of the ceiling. Here are exposed gesso models of a few funeral monuments and statues, among which the enormous Theseus conquer of the Cantaur, Hercules and Lichas and others of rare bauty like Venus and Adonis and the famous Paolina Bonaparte.

The Scarpa Wing, in 1957, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the artist's birth, the Gipsoteca was expanded.
The liminous new space was artistically conceived by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa so as to accentuate the contrast between the whiteness of the gesso and the realism of the shapes. It is in this room that one can admire the three Graces: the idealized nude, the sinous placement of the figures, the intertwining of the arms the flowing veil: a perfect, studied, harmonious whole.

Besides this famous group, in the Scarpa wing, thera are also, the Dancers, Venus and Psyche standing, Naiad reclining, the self portrait of the artist, the bust of Napoleon and the models in terracotta. www.museocanova.it

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The Tempio, which Canova wanted as the parisch church of his town, is dedicated to the Trinity.

It was conceived by the artist himself and designed by Pietro Bosio, with suggestions by Antonio Selva. Canova placed the first stone on July 11th, 1819.

Three sources of inspiration stand out in the imposing neoclassical construction: the Doric colums (which recall the Parthenon of Athens); the central body (similar to the Roman Parthenon); and the raised apse like in ancient Christian Basilicas.

The three parts can be considerasymbols of the threee ages of history: Greek civilization, latin civilization and the solemnity of the Christian period. Inside we can admire the vault divided into seven rows of 32 four-sided coffers, each one containg a golden rose.

The Tempio also houses precious works af art, among which the altarpiece above the sltsr of S.Francesco di Paola, by Luca Giordano and the painting of Jesus in the Garden of Olives by Palma il Giovane. Various examples of metope (square space between triglyphs in a Doric frieze) by Canova with scenes taken from the Old Testament embellish the side wolks. The large niche on the right is home to the Pietà in bronze by Bartolomeo Ferrari after a model by Canova.

Of the main altar is a painting of the Deposition executed by Canova between 1798-99 for the old parish church and moved here in 1830; beside the tabernacle two statues by Torretti, Canova's first teacher.

On the last altar, a painting of the Madonna with saints, attributed to Andrea Vicentino.

The wall to the left of the entrance is dominated by the imposing niche which holds the funeral urn of the Master of Possagno. To the right of the Tomb, the self-portrait of Antonio Canova, to the left the portrait of his step-brother Giovanni Battista Sartori, by Cincinnato Baruzzi; in front of the tomb, there is a three-footed stand (tripode) in bronze by Pogliaghi, in memory of the first centenary of Canova's death.

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