Villa Cigolotti was started to be built in 1740, when the aristocratic family of the Counts Cigolotti needed a house in the western Friuli region for business reasons.

The Cigolotti family was active in the sector of wood supplying to the Venetian Republic. They were provisioning the row material in the forest of northwestern Friulian pre-Alps, material that was then delivered to Venice by water way. By 1740, the business was flourishing as well as the personal income of the family, so forth the Cigolotti started to build a summer Villa in Basaldella di Vivaro. The location was very convenient since positioned not too far from the mountains and just in between the beds of the two rivers Meduna e Cellina that provided practical water roads.

At the beginning, the Villa was used only during the summer season, as vacation mansion; but by the end of the 18th century, some enlargements in the propriety where made to host the family and the servants all year long; in order to keep a closer eye on their business. It was during the 19th century that frescos have been painted to decorate the walls of the Villa with delicate neo-Pompeian style friezes, while the precious mosaics decorating the floors are from 1740 and the immediate following years.

By the half of the 19th century, the Cigolotti family relocated moving out of Villa Cigolotti; and from then on the Villa was sold to a series of local families.

By the second half of the 20th century, in the period after the Second World War to the end of the century, Villa Cigolotti was surviving under a state of severe abandonment that was causing serious damages to the facility.

By the year 1996 Villa Cigolotti was acquired by a private owner that started a process of restoration of the facility, under the supervision of the Ministry for the Arts and Cultural Heritage’s local division.

Nowadays Villa Cigolotti is fully restored at the best of its original shape and serves as hospitality facility.