The Folador doesn’t have a glorious history, but rather a past filled with even radical changes.

Villa Rubini in Merlana was built in the 18th century by the ancient Friulian family of the Counts Mantica.

In 1833 the count Nicolò del fu Leonardo Mantica sold the entire complex, with the adjacent agricultural estate of 272 fields in Friuli, to Domenico Rubini He, by developing his father Pietro’s business, had become one of the major producers of silk threads in Friuli, which he traded on a large scale, traveling (apparently by carriage!) to reach Milan and Vienna, where he had set up warehouses for his products.

It was he who provided for the construction of a new agricultural warehouse on the north side of the garden, replacing the smaller one that was there before. This is the typical “folador” of the Friulian plain: an edifice with two long adjoining rooms on the ground floor, one to the south intended as a wine cellar, and one to the north intended as a storage cellar, and on the first floor, a single room intended for grain storage.

In a later period, the building was used for silkworm breeding, with the necessary stoves installed, which were later removed.

What makes it exceptional are its dimensions: sixty meters in length and fourteen meters in width, and the consequent grandeur of the trusses that support the roof.

Just to think that the beams, over fourteen meters long, were transported from the forests of Carnia, which were about a hundred kilometers away, in a time when railways did not exist, it’s hard to imagine the long procession of carts that had to cross the Friulian plain.

The real estate complex remained in the ownership of the Rubini family without undergoing significant modifications until the years 2010/2011 when the current owner, Dr. Giovanni Rubini, transformed the “folador” building, which had become unusable for its original purposes. The vast spaces were then allocated for public and private meetings, even of considerable size.

It was a very demanding undertaking; just consider that all the roof trusses were raised by about one meter from their original position.

It was years of great dedication, faced with enthusiasm: but after a thousand uncertainties and problems, the result exceeded the owner’s every expectation. They will never forget the emotion they experienced when listening to a Mozart concert in the first-floor hall, where previously they could only hear the cooing of doves!