It is located at the top of the hill overlooking the city, arranged and cultivated according to a design that enhances both the location and the "perfect" polyhedron of the building. The villa is part of the Contarini estates, of significant Venetian nobility, such that the name "del Principe" attributed to the villa stems from Alvise Contarini's election as Doge of Venice in 1676, while he was vacationing in Este. Built in the last decades of the 1500s, possibly following a design by Vincenzo Scamozzi, it was expanded and remodeled in the centuries that followed.
The summit position and the arrangement of the southern slope, with the sloping avenue that crosses the visibly prominent rows, enhance the role of the building as a signal, standing out even though it is small in size (compared to the other underlying villas).
The original construction appears perfectly integrated into the surrounding park, while the added upper floor of the longitudinal body to the north has a remarkable impact, despite its relatively small size, given the already very prominent position of the entire complex.
The layout is almost unique in Western Veneto: a square with an inscribed Greek cross, to which a shallow but protruding rectangular body is attached on the northern side. The floor plan is strictly symmetrical: the Greek cross of the central hall occupies 5 of the 9 squares that make up the fundamental square, with barrel vaults.
In this way, the villa seems like a machine for the Renaissance homo novus, a scene where the staircases and aligned doors emphasize the centrality of the cross hall, a sort of navel that points to the world in all four directions.
The façade to the south, replicated exactly to the east and west, offers a severe ensemble with the proportions and simplest figures of Venetian classicism: the tympanum where the barrel vault of the central hall originates, the uniform rhythm of the openings, and the height alignments given by the large cornice and the rusticated base.
The doors (the only openings with an arch) and the entrance staircase mark the axis of symmetry that is reproduced without fail inside.
As it appears from the outside, the building has gone through two construction phases: the oldest part faces south, while the northern part was built later and has been remodeled several times over the centuries. The villa is located at the center of a wide courtyard paved with trachyte and presents itself as a quadrangular block with gabled facades preceded by staircases: the slightly protruding plinth, the doorways, and the windows are decorated with rusticated stones.
From the city, the villa, quite distant, is recognizable by the vegetation and the traces of the rows that ascend to the terrace, forming a still well-readable perspective, despite the growing vegetation along the slope, originally cultivated and orderly.
It is one of the most sought-after views of Este, as it presents an intact image not only of a monument but of a fascinating landscape context. In fact, the slopes of Monte Cero behind the historic center appear little altered since the 1700s: the few recent constructions are almost invisible, and the green of the gardens merges with that of the almost abandoned crops.
