The building has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1996 . However, the preservation of this architectural asset is in jeopardy as it is in a state of neglect.

Villa Forni Cerato represents an exemplary case of Palladian intervention on a pre-existing building, transformed albeit with modest means into a significant monumental episode. This villa is the only one designed by Palladio for an admittedly wealthy but not noble owner: Girolamo Forni, a wealthy timber merchant, a friend of artists such as Vittoria and a painter himself, a collector of antiquities and a member of the Accademia Olimpica in Vicenza. It is possible that the dry minimalism of this calibrated building is in harmony with the bourgeois social status of the owner.

It is precisely the abstract language of Villa Forni that has raised doubts about its actual Palladian authorship, as has the extremely simple floor plan, lacking the usual relationships between the dimensions of the rooms, or the presence of some proportional disharmony between the parts of the building. In reality the villa is the outcome of the renovation of the pre-existing "old house," and if anything the point of view should be reversed, grasping the Palladian intelligence in transforming conditioning constraints into expressive opportunities. This is exemplified by the clear design of the serliana , with the columns reconducted to crisp stereometric pillars according to the limited width of the loggia or the frieze reduced to a simple band under the cornice. The elevation of the loggia, moreover, is conceptually identical to that of the Cogollo house, once again connecting these two singular buildings.