Approaching Villa Selvatico is like entering a story. The path, punctuated by centuries-old trees, thermal waters and statues wrapped in a solemn silence, opens up to the view the majestic climb: a staircase in Euganean trachyte on which the elegant Villa stands.

The narrative continues once you enter its door. Here you can admire the splendid rooms decorated with frescoes dating back to 1650 and the refined dome that dominates the large ceremonial hall.

Room after room, step by step, let yourself be inspired by the echo of an ancient story.

Over ten hectares of uncontaminated greenery embrace Villa Selvatico, giving life to a lush park, animated by the thermal waters and the quiet of time. In the 19th century, thanks to the vision of Giuseppe Jappelli, the park transformed into a place with a romantic soul: the geometries of the ancient Italian garden dissolve into soft paths and natural scenarios and the landscape becomes a story.

Inspired by the VI book of the Aeneid, the one about the journey to the Underworld, Jappelli draws groves, fishponds and soul perspectives.

Five thermal lakes welcome you in a suspended landscape, where dream and reality intertwine as in one of Shakespeare's most visionary works.

In the winter months, the vapors that rise from the spring waters draw unreal, ethereal scenarios, capable of evoking other worlds, so much so that they pushed Giuseppe Jappelli to compare this place to the descent of Aeneas into the Underworld. But here there is no fear, no darkness: only wonder.

The gaze opens onto a small earthly paradise, to be crossed with the body and inhabited with the soul.

On the first noble floor, a large Greek cross-shaped hall, entirely frescoed, welcomes you. Its frescoes, created around 1650 by Luca Ferrari, known as Luca da Reggio, and Lorenzo Bedogni, tell stories of origins and legends, including founding myths and ancient symbols. It was Benedetto Selvatico, doctor and academic, who conceived the entire iconographic program, taking inspiration from the foundation of Padua by Antenore and drawing on the allegories of Cesare Ripa. The result is a harmonious and cultured narrative cycle, in which history, art and beauty intertwine in a single, intense vision.

The seventeenth-century dome created by Tommaso Forzazan and decorated by Lorenzo Bedogni houses the spectacular "Rose of the Winds".

An architectural illusion, with Corinthian columns and painted pillars, supports a circular cornice populated by eight heads each bearing the name of a wind.

In the center, a metal arrow connected to an external flag indicates the direction in real time. Everything is enriched by the presence of mythological figures – Jupiter, Juno, Aurora and Astraeus – who evoke the cyclical nature of life and the harmony between art, nature and sky.

On the northern slope of the hill, the small Oratory of Sant'Elena preserves the deep breath of time. Among the oldest examples of religious architecture in the area, it has welcomed, since the year 1000, the prayers of the few families who lived on the slopes of the hill. Today, the oratory presents itself with its seventeenth-century appearance, but still retains its crypt dating back to 1100.

At the foot of the majestic staircase, the historic greenhouse of Villa Selvatico preserves the warm breath of the winter garden. This large lemon house, immersed in the lush greenery of the park, tells the story of the evolution of nineteenth-century botanical and landscape taste, between exotic visions and architectural experiments. Wanted by Giuseppe Jappelli, it is a declaration of love for nature as a living, changing art, to be preserved and shown to the world. This place once hosted rare and fragrant plants, including a large exotic palm in the center of the elliptical space. Today, after a long restoration, it returns to being a bright, silent and harmonious place. A place where the encounter between nature and architecture becomes poetry.

The panoramic terrace of Villa Selvatico, in Battaglia Terme, opens your gaze onto a boundless wonder: that of the Euganean Hills. A window wide open onto the world, where time seems to have stopped and the landscape becomes a living canvas, made up of soft hills, tree profiles and sinuous lines that dance on the horizon. It is a point of arrival, or perhaps a beginning; a place where everything is revealed and perceived with an unprecedented intensity.

Not a simple access, but a symbolic path.

144 steps in Euganean trachyte, which will lead you on a slow ascent, towards a panorama that changes step by step. Climbing the staircase is like crossing a gap between two worlds: from the roots of the earth, to the breath of the villa. Each step is a sweet anticipation of the wonder that is about to unfold before your eyes.

And many other wonders, all to be discovered…