The villa, built in 1853, is located near the small lake of the same name, once the residence of the Counts Welsperg, modernly restored and equipped, since 1996 it has been the seat of the Park Authority and houses the administrative and technical offices and the Visitor Center. Discover the new exhibition itinerary. Villa Welsperg is a complex of three buildings, the actual villa, the small church and the barn, surrounded, or rather immersed in a garden, on the edge of a large pasture-meadow which fades into a small but interesting peat bog .
 

The Villa

The new Visitor Center

The Villa's Visitor Center has been completely revised. The new layout creates a "situation of experience" in which it is possible to appropriate the peculiar and essential characteristics of each geographical area of ​​the Park. As it happens, the articulation of the spaces on the ground floor of Villa Welsperg shows an extraordinary topographical similarity - almost a sort of analogy - with the real territorial development of the Park. Here then is the idea of ​​dividing the exhibition space into six ideal rooms. The first is dedicated to the entire park and the sense-value of biodiversity. The other five rooms each have a portrait - if we can say so - of the great areas of the Park: we start with Val Canali, go up to the Pale Plateau, descend into the Paneveggio Forest, climb up again to the ridge of the Lagorai, and finally descend into the Vanoi. In other words, the ring that takes place inside the halls of Villa Welsperg really looks a lot like a possible journey into the true territory. Walking in these rooms, along this path, is like moving in small ways in the forms and complexities of the Park. The distance and the differences that exist, for example, between Val Canali and Paneveggio, are perceived here with all one's body, moving from one room to another in respect of a stylized but likely dislocation of real places.

Two paths

Once you have entered Villa Welsperg and arrived at the reception, you will find yourself in the atrium where this new layout opens and from which the visit itinerary starts. The entrance to the exhibition halls artistically re-proposes the large lime tree that dominates the garden of the Villa. Its fronds reach the ground and mark two obvious passages, one normal and one smaller, absolutely special. To start the journey it is necessary to enter under the foliage of the big tree, the adults for the normal entrance, but the children for the special one reserved for them. The two entrances introduce into two distinct paths that present different but complementary elements. The topics and themes are essentially the same, but the point of view from which you look at them changes. The street reserved for children and young people is a "magical path" studded with small trials to overcome (the Via della Lepre, the Via Ferrata, ...): it offers, however, the exclusive meeting with some inhabitants of the Park, such as the deer, mother lynx, marmots in the den.

The Tabià

Inside the Compendium of Villa Welsperg, the ancient Tabià is a typical example of rural architecture. The building is on two floors and consisted of the stable on the ground floor and the barn on the first floor. The ground floor preserves the original floor in "salesà" on clay. This is the name given to the ancient paved paving that we find in buildings of this type and in many mountain mule tracks, made with the use of pebbles and stones and following traditional specific and precise technical methods for its implementation. The new intervention involved the redevelopment with restructuring of the Tabià, in addition to the reorganization of the interior space system. The rooms on the ground floor are used as support areas for environmental education activities throughout the year, while the first floor can be used for conferences, meetings and meetings, as well as a container for the exhibitions of the Park. The intervention has favored criteria of sustainability and energy saving and the technologies adopted are part of the "virtuous technological path" that describes the energy redevelopment works of the villa. The intervention introduces a new fixed element, the "Barch", placed next to the Tabià. An open, light structure, which will be used for parking and protection from inclement weather (it can hold at least 50 people). The dialectal name "barch" derives from the typical constructions of aces, which are found above all in the valley floor, once used, as a shelter for hay. The roof covering is made up of a hanging green package using autochthonous essences.

The garden

In the large clearing an access road with a monumental beech (the estimated age is 300 years) secular lime trees and horse chestnuts welcomes visitors and leads them to a pond with various aquatic species. Continuing the path towards the main building, the garden finds its ideal center of gravity and thread in a stream, it laps the square of the birches, the literary path, the garden of ferns and that of ancient roses, but it is necessary to abandon it and around the villa to get lost in a small labyrinth, where the hedges are made up of species of shrubs usually present in the Park. In front of the large barn the Orto officinale and the Custodian Field: the first houses the plants that in the past were used in the local popular pharmacopoeia; in the second they are cultivated, to facilitate the spread of seeds, local food varieties no longer commonly used in the vegetable gardens of Primiero and Vanoi. Both contribute to increasing the cultivated biodiversity of the Val Canali. The deconsecrated church is used for temporary exhibitions. The barn, restored inside in a modern key, has been transformed into a large multi-purpose room, which can comfortably accommodate 100 people and is used as a congress hall and for temporary exhibitions. The lower floors, the stables, which are the subject of a conservative restoration, are therefore used for the exhibitions, thus maintaining their original appearance and shape. An area dedicated to children has been created inside the garden. Here was placed a large deer, animal symbol of the Park, with which and within which you can play and climb.

The lime trees of Villa Welsperg

Bright mountains like the Pale di San Martino in the background, the torrent with turquoise waters flowing between the white stones, the wood all around the villa which is now the home of the regional park, make you want to put down roots like the two linden trees large and beautiful in the garden. They have been staying with her since 1853 for the Welsperg family, an Austrian on earth who was then Austria. As is their tradition but also of the Slovenians, Germans and French, a linden was planted to ensure the protection of nature. Even better if they were two like here: a wild one with a slender shape, small and dark leaves, early flowering, which represents man and winter, next to the Italian one with its expanded crown, large and clear leaves, which flowers later, remember the woman and the summer. The bees that help them to transform the flowers from the intense perfume into fruits, make with honey a nectar among the best and sometimes they take the honeydew released by the aphids, the tiny insects that suck the sweet sap from the leaves. It is often the ants that carry them there in order to then have their sugar liquid. To get rid of them you can get help from ladybugs, which if you eat them very willingly. Herbalists preserve the flowers for the exquisite herbal teas in winter, against the spasms of cold or bad-tempered diseases. The young leaves are good in salads or as forage for animals and with fruits you can make an oil with a delicate flavor. The limes have emollient and detoxifying qualities, to the point that eating the coal made with the wood of their branches is among the most effective remedies to save themselves from poisoning. For this reason, since ancient times these trees have had the title of great healers. For this reason the town squares and the gardens or the castle avenues were decorated with them. Among the branches of century-old linden trees, the town band or musicians played during the holidays in Germany. Moreover, their fibrous and indeformable wood, from which the adjective tiglioso comes, has often been used to build musical instruments. Under their protection important meetings were held for the community, such as in Cavalese where there is still the "banco de la reson", the double ring of stone seats with a small circular table in the middle and large lime trees all around. The sweet and at the same time tenacious character is the most appropriate to inspire decisions.