Married: c. 1770, Doralice Bollani, widow of Agostino Maffetti

Died: 7 November 1802

SEN. CATERINO ANTONIO CORNARO was the last surviving member of the Cornaro della Regina family in its S. Cassiano line.

He had an active public career, serving as capitano [military commander] and Vice Podesta' [governor] of Padua, 1784-6. Later he was Provveditore Generale [civilian military commander] at Padua. As the final inqusitor of the Republic of Venice, he was arrested and imprisoned by Napoleon's forces for having resisted the occupation of Venice by France, 12 May 1797. He was later released only upon payment of an enormous indemnity.

Sen. Caterino was the 13th and last Cornaro owner/manager of his family's Andrea Palladio-designed Villa Cornaro at Piombino Dese. There he acquired from his sixth cousins their immediately adjacent Villa Cornaro designed by Michele Sanmicheli. Thereupon, he took the curious, even eccentric, step of razing the Sanmicheli villa and constructing on its site a 30-meter extension of the eastern wing of the Palladian villa. Fortunately, the absurd adumbration was removed by a later owner of the villa.

© 1997 C. I. Gable