ANDREA PALLADIO

1.0 Introduction

Andrea Palladio is the one of the famous architect who comes from Vicenza. In 1570 Palladio

had The Four Books of Architecture printed, in which he took stock of a 40-year career filled

with extraordinary creations. On the tables, the villas and the palazzi appear just like the architect

had meant them to be, perfect, not spoilt by compromises sometimes imposed by the nature of

the place or by already existing buildings, and sumptuous, as they could not always be realized,

due to the shortage of funding or other negative circumstances.

Palladio's heritage does not have equals in the history of western architecture, and maybe was

even the greatest of all architects. His treatise was reprinted many times and translated in several

languages, so as to amplify his message and to spread the Palladian style all over the world, from

America to New Zealand, beyond the temporal perspectives the author could have imagined.

The writing style is immediate and precise and matches the author's character, which the

chronicles of his time described as a well-educated and pleasant man. The details of his

descriptions reveal an extraordinary mastery of the subject, both in the material aspects he had

learnt during his long years of training as apprentice first and as master builder later, and in his

overall views, which took shape in the sight of the masterpieces of classical architecture.

Michelangelo was an introvert and impulsive artist, Leonardo was a prodigy. Palladio was a

balanced and measured man, and these qualities shine also through his portraits, which show an

extraordinary sense of proportion and space ratios. This is the unique combination that made him

a genius. But above all he was a serene person, and his serenity was the impetus of this art and

the winning feature in the challenge every artist puts out to time.

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2.0 Biography

Andrea Palladio was born on November 30, 1508 in Padua, the Republic of Venice. He was died

in August 1580. His originally named is Andrea di Pietro della Gondola and he was named

Palladio by the Italian poet and patron Gian Giorgio Trissino, who was saw Palladio’s

architectural studies. Palladio moved to Vicenza in his early twenties to Vicenza where he would

reside for most of his life. Trissino took Palladio to Rome, where Palladio studied and measured

Roman architectural ruin and he also studied the treatises of Vitruvius, one of the most important

of the Roman architects. At Vicenza he became an assistant in the Pedemuro studio, a leading

workshop of stonecutters and masons. He joined a guild of stonemasons and bricklayers. He was

employed as a stonemason to make monuments and decorative sculptures. These sculptures

reflected the Manneris style of the architect Michele Sanmicheli.

Palladio was the first architect to recognise that humble buildings such as barns and bridges were

as worthy of architectural design as villas and palaces. He also asserted that any building could

be beautiful without using expensive materials. His book and his buildings demonstrate his

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profound understanding of classical architecture while the subtle harmony of his plans and

elevations were comprehensible to country builders as well as wealthy clients.

Andrea Palladio began to develop his architectural style around 1541. The Palladian style named

after him, adhered to classical Roman principles he rediscovered, applied, and explained in his

works. Andrea Palladio is known to be one of the most influential architects in Western

architecture. He designed many palaces, villas and churches, but Palladio's reputation, initially,

and after his death, has been founded on his skill as a designer of villas. The Palladian villas are

located mainly in the province of Vicenza, while the palazzi are concentrated in the city

of Vicenza and the churches in Venice. A number of his works are now protected as part of the

World of Heritage City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto. Other buildings by

Palladio are to be found within the Venice and its Lagoon World Heritage Site.

3.0 Buildings

3.1 Villa Barbaro

Villa Barbaro also known as Villa di Maser. It is a large villa at Maser in the Veneto region of

northern Italy. It is the one of Palladio’s most magnificent and influential designs. Palladio

planned the villa on low lines extending into a large park. The ground floor plan is complex -

rectangular with perpendicular rooms on a long axis, the central block projects and contains the

principal reception room. The central block, which is designed to resemble the portico of a

Roman temple, is decorated by four Ionic columns, a motif which takes its inspiration from the

Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome.  The central block is surmounted by a large pediment with

heraldic symbols of the Barbaro family in relief.

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Figure 3.1.1: Villa Barbaro Plan

Figure 3.1.2: Floor Plan in Villa Barbaro

The central block is flanked by two symmetrical wings. The wings have two floors but are

fronted by an open arcade. Usually Palladio designed the wings to provide functional

accommodation for agricultural use.  The Maser estate was a fairly small one and would not have

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needed as much storage space. The wings are terminated by pavilions which feature large

sundials set beneath their pediments. The pavilions were intended to house dovecotes on the

uppermost floor, while the rooms below were for wine-making, stables and domestic use. In

many of Palladio's villas similar pavilions were little more than mundane farm buildings behind

a concealing façade. A typical feature of Palladio's villa architecture, they were to be much

copied and changed in the Palladian architecture inspired by Palladio's original designs.

Figure 3.1.3: Section and details

Figure 3.1.4: Villa Barbaro

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3.2 Basilica Palladiana

Another building was designed by Andrea Palladio is the Basilica Palladiana. Basiclica

Palladiana is a Renaissance building in the central Piazza de Signori in Vicenza, north-

eastern Italy. The most significant feature of the building is the piazza, which shows one of the

first examples of that to be known as the Palladian window.

The building was originally constructed in the 15th century and was known as the Palazzo della

Ragione. The building was the seat of government and also housed a number of shops on the

ground floor. When part of the building collapsed in the sixteenth century, the Council of One

Hundred commissioned many architects to submit designs and selected Palladio to reconstruct

the building in April 1549. Palladio added a new outer-shell of marble classical forms, a loggia

and a portico that now obscure the original Gothic architecture.

The name Basilica, by the way, comes from Palladio himself. In the 16 th century Basilica did not

refer to church, but rather to a meeting room and courtroom. It’s a marvel to witness the huge

scale of the imposing building from the inside. The large hall on the first floor gives a good

impression of the size of the building. Temporary exhibitions take place here which can be

visited.

The Basilica was an expensive project and took a long time to complete. Palladio received an

income for the work during most of his life. Only in 1614, in thirty years after his death they did

the building stand complete.

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Figure 3.2.1 Basilica Palladiana in the night view

Figure 3.2.2: Clock Tower of Basilica Palladiana know as Torre Bissara

3.3 Teatro Olimpico (Olympic Theatre)

The Teatro Olimpic is the theatre in Vicenza, northern Italy. It is widely considered the first

example of covered theatre of the Modern Age. The theatre was commissioned in 1580 by the

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Vicenza Academia Olimpica ("Olympic Academy") for the eastern part of the city. Construction

began that year, and the building was inaugurated on March 3, 1585, after the completion of the

famous scenes by Vincenzo Scamozzi. These are the sole Renaissance structures of that kind to

have survived until contemporary times. Together with other Palladian buildings in Vicenza, the

theatre is included in the UNESCO World Heritages Sites list.

Palladio created a magnificent classical stage wall, including stucco statues of the Academicians

dressed as ancient Romans. Inside an exterior brick box, the elaborate wooden theater interior is

a half circle of steep tiers of seats (wood covered benches) facing a rectangular proscenium

stage. A wooden colonnade with cornice and figures above circles the top of the seats. The

ceiling plane is undifferentiated and was later painted blue, suggesting an open sky above the

theater.

The walls and ceiling of the proscenium are elaborately articulated with architectural details and

statues, made of wood and plaster. A central arched opening dominates the back wall, flanked by

two smaller doorways. Through these openings, elaborate stage sets of streets angle backstage, a

triad through the central opening and single streets through each side. These sets, designed later

by Scamozzi, and use the techniques of tilting the floors and contracting the angle between the

street walls and the heights of their building facades to make foreshortened streets in perspective.

With the Teatro Olimpico, Palladio designed one of the most distinctive and evocative spaces in

architectural history, which has become a reference for theatre designers ever since.

Figure 3.3.1 Floor Plan of Teatro Olimpico

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Figure 3.3.2: Inside view of Teatro Olimpico

Figure 3.3.3: Teatro Olimpico facade

 

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4.0 Andrea Palladio: His Career Timeline

Palladio and his Career Year Related Publications and Events

Jean-Jacques Boissard: Poggio Bracciolini

1414 Poggio Bracciolini discovers at the monastic library of St. Galen in Switzerland a medieval manuscript copy of De architectura, a treatise written by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the first century A.D.

Leon Battista Alberti

1452 Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria [Ten books on architecture] (Florence), published posthumously.

1483 Vitruvius, De architectura libri decem [Ten books on architecture] (Rome: Fra Giovanni Sulpitius, 1st printed ed.).

 Andrea di Pietro dalla Gondola [Andrea, son of Pietro of the gondola], later to be known as Andrea Palladio, is born in Padua on 30 November, St. Andrea's Day.  His godfather is Vincenzo Grandi, a Vicenza sculptor who also worked in Padua.

1508

Andrea Palladio

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1511 Vitruvius, De architectura, (Venice: 1st illustrated ed.).  Edited by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, who probably supplied the illustrations..

Andrea is apprenticed to Bartolomeo Cavazza, a stonecutter in Padua.

1521 Vitruvius, De architectura (Como: 1st Italian ed.).  Translation and commentary primarily by Cesare Cesariano.

 Andrea breaks his apprenticeship contract and moves to Vicenza to join his family, which has moved there. Cavazza brings him back to Padua.

1523

 Andrea parts with Cavazza and enrolls in Vicenza guild of stonemasons. He trains under Giovanni da Porlezza, an architect-builder, and Girolamo Pittoni, a sculptor, who together own the Pedemuro workshop.

1524 Alvise Cornaro constructs in the courtyard of his palace in Padua a loggia designed by Giovanni Maria Falconetto in theall'antica style.

Vincenzo Catena: Giangiorgio Trissino

1527 Rome is sacked by forces of the Holy Roman Emperor.  Several prominent figures relocate from Rome to the Veneto, including sculptor-architect Jacopo Sansovino to Venice; architect Micheli Sanmicheli to Verona and Venice, architect-writer Sebastiano Serlio to Venice, and literary figure Giangiorgio Trissino to Vicenza.

1531 The Pedemuro workshop, commissioned by Francesco Godi, erects a portal with classical elements for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi, near the central piazza of Vicenza.

 Andrea marries Allegradonna, the daughter of a carpenter.  Her dowry is provided by Angela Poiana, a Venetian noblewoman in whose household she served.  They will have five children:  Leonida (an architect who worked with his father), Marc'antonio

1534

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(who worked with the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria in Venice), Orazio (who studied law in Padua), Zenobia (wife of a goldsmith in Vicenza) and Silla (who, as secretary of the Accademia Olimpico, supervised completion of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, after his father's death). The Pedemuro workshop executes the high altar of the cathedral of Vicenza, with a combination of classical and Venetian elements, possibly to Palladio's design.

1534-1536

The Pedemuro workshop installs a classical doorway, probably to Palladio's design, for the Domus Comestabilis in Vicenza, leading from the Basilica to the residence of the Venetianpodestà [governor].

1536

 Andrea probably meets Giangiorgio Trissino for the first time while the Pedemuro workshop is working on Trissiono's villa at Cricoli.

1536-1537

Giangiorgio Trissino rebuilds his villa in Cricoli, outside Vicenza, after Sebastiano Serlio's drawing of an alternative garden facade which Rafael had designed for Villa Madama in Rome.

Andrea leaves the Pedemuro workshop but receives through them his first major commission, to design Villa Godi in Lonedo di Lugo.

1537 Sebastiano Serlio, General rules on architecture [Fourth Book on architecture] (Venice).  The first volume published in a projected series of seven.

1538 Jacopo Sansovino works on the upper gallery of the cathedral in Vicenza.

 Andrea moves temporarily to Padua with Giangiorgio Trissino.  While there he meets Alvise Cornaro, likely sees in construction the Bastion Cornaro designed by Michele Sanmicheli, and may meet his future patrons Giorgio Cornaro and Daniele Barbaro, who are both present there at that time.

1538-1540

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Andrea returns briefly from Padua to Vicenza in February 1539 to attend a theatrical performance staged in a wooden theater designed by Sebastiano Serlio for the courtyard of Palazzo Colleoni Porto, which influenced the subsequent founding of the Accademia Olimpica. Andrea for the first time appears in some documents as 'Palladio' and begins to use the title architect.

1540 Sebastiano Serlio, Delle Antichità [Third book on architecture] (Venice).

Palladio designs Palazzo Civena in Vicenza.

Torello Sarayna, De origine et amplitudine civitatis Veronae(Venice), a book on Verona antiquities.

Palladio visits Rome for the first time, from early in the year until autumn, accompanied by Giangiorgio Trissino.

1541 Serlio moves to Fountainbleau as a consultant to the French king.

Palladio designs Villa Valmarana at VigardoloPalladio designs Villa Gazzotti in Marcello Curti in Bertisima with his first templ- style pediment.

Villa Gazzotti1541-1542

Michele Sanmicheli visits Vicenza for consultation on the Basilica, staying with Giovanni da Porlezza of the Pedemuro workshop.

Palladio designs Villa Pisani at Bagnolo, his first commission for a patrician family of Venice.

1542

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Titian: Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano visits Vicenza as a paid consultant for the Palazzo della Ragione (Basilica) project.

Palladio begins designing Palazzo Porto in Vicenza.Palladio performs his first public commission as Vicenza's city architect.   With support from Giangiorgio Trissino, Palladio constructs a temporary architectural stage set with triumphal arches and pediments in the all'antica style to celebrate the arrival into Vicenza of Cardinal Bishop Niccolò Ridolfi.

1543

 Palladio visits Rome for the second time, from September until February of following year, accompanied by Giangiorgio Trissino.

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Palladio begins designing Palazzo da Porto Festa.

1545

Palazzo da Porto Festa (detail)Palladio and Giovanni da Porlezza of the Pedemuro workshop submit a proposal forthe Basilica loggia project.

Palladio visits Rome for the third time, from March until July of following year, accompanied by Giangiorgio Trissino. While there he may have designed the ciborium in the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia.

1546 Leon Battista Alberti, Ten books on architecture, 1st Italian ed. (Venice).

Upon Giulio Romano's death, Palladio assumes supervision of the construction of PalazzoThiene, which was begun in 1542, and modifies some of Romano's design for it; construction is suspended before completion.Palladio travels to Albano, Tivoli and Palestrina.

1547

Palladio designs Villa Caldogno. 1548Palladio designs Villa Saraceno in Finale andVilla Poiana in Poiana Maggiore.

1548-1549

Palladio is commissioned to construct the loggias of Vicenza's Palazzo della Ragione, known as theBasilica.

1549

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 Palladio visits Rome for the fourth time, possibly to advise on St. Peter's Basilica. He probably views Sangallo the Younger's recent giant model of it.Palladio designs a bridge spanning the Cismon River at Bassano del Grappa.

1550

Bridge over the Cismon River, Bassano del Grappa (reproduction)

John Shute travels to Italy, upon commission by the Duke of Cumberland, to research architecture.Giangiorgio Trissino dies.

Palladio begins designing Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese (his second villa for a Venetian patrician), Villa Pisani in Montagnana, Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza, and Palazzo della Torre in Verona.

1551

Villa Cornaro, Piombino DesePalladio unsuccessfully seeks appointment asproto, chief architect, of the Salt Magistracy in Venice.

1554

Palladio visits Rome for the fifth time, accompanied by [Pirro?] Ligorio and Daniele Barbaro. He probably writes his two guidebooks on this trip, L’antichità di Roma between February and July and Descrizione delle chiese di

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Roma thereafter.Palladio participates in first Rialto Bridge project.

Pietro Cateneo of Siena, I quattro primi libri d architettura (Venice)

Palladio designs Villa Mocenigo at Dolo and Villa Chiericati at Vancimuglio (his first villa with a 'Greek temple-front' motif)

Villa Chiericati, Vancimuglio Anton Francesco Doni in his Seconda Libraria  mentions that Palladio has drafted an architectural treatise: 'The book is untitled, but from what one can learn from it, [it] could be called 'the norms of true architecture.'

1555

Palladio submits a model for a stairway at the Doge's Palace in Venice.Palladio and others submit plans for replacing the Rialto Bridge.

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Palladio designs Villa Badoer in Fratta Polesina.

Villa Badoer, Fratta PolesinePalladio designs Palazzo Antonini in Udine.

1555

Palladio designs the Arco Bollani, an arched gateway in Udine.

1556

Arco Bollani, Udine Palladio joins in founding the Accademia Olimpico in Vicenza. Daniele Barbaro confirms Doni's description of Palladio's text and adds that Palladio has included drawings and comments on the structures he had planned and built.

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 Palladio supplies illustrations for Daniele Barbaro's Italian language edition of Vitruvius (and the Latin edition in the following year).

 Giorgio Vasari probably views Palladio's original manuscript during his visit to Venice. He uses it freely in writing Palladio's profile in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architect.Palladio designs Villa Barbaro in Maser, incorporating remnants of an earlier structure, andVilla Repeta in Campiglia.

Villa Barbaro, MaserPalladio designs Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta) on the Brenta and Villa Zen in Cessalto.

1558

Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta)Palladio designs a façade for the Church of San Pietro in

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Castello, the patriarchal cathedral of Venice. Palladio receives his first commission for a work in Venice: completion of the refectory for the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore.

1560

Palladio designs Villa Emo in Fanzolo.

Villa Emo, FanzoloPalladio designs a façade for Palazzo Schio in the Ponte Pusterla section of Vicenza.Palladio designs the convent of Santa Maria della Carità in Venice

Palladio designs the first of his three temporary theaters, with others following in 1562 and 1565.

1561

1562 Giacomo Barozzi Vignola,  La regola delli cinque ordini dell' architettura (Rome).

Palladio designs a façade for church of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice.Palladio designs Villa Valmarana at Lisiera.

1563

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John Shute, First & chief groundes of architecture (London).

Palladio submits unsuccessful design for second Rialto Bridge competition in Venice.

1565

Palladio designs the rebuilding of the church ofSanta Lucia in Venice.Palladio designs the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

Palladio designs Villa Sarego at Santa Sofia.Palladio designs Palazzo Valmarana in Vicenza.Palladio travels to Turin at the invitation of Emanuele Philiberto, Duke of Savoy, who had moved his capital there four years earlier and launched a series of building projects.

1566

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Palladio designs Villa Almerigo [La Rotonda]near Vicenza.

c1566

 Villa Almerigo (La Rotonda), Vicenza

Palladio critiques a model created by Lodovico Beretta for a proposed new cathedral in Brescia.

1567 Pietro Cateneo, L'architettura di Pietro Cataneo Senese (Venice).

Palladio designs Palazzo Barbaran da Porto in Vicenza.

1570

At the request of Martino Bassi, Palladio and others comment on a design controversy involving Milan Cathedral.  Palladio publishes I quattro libri dell'architettura[Four Books on Architecture] (Venice: Domenico de' Franceschi).

 Later Italian editions of I quattro libri published in 1581, 1601, 1616, 1642, 1711 (with L'Antichità di Roma), 1740-48 (G. Fossati ed. with Muttoni annotations), 1768 (reprinted 1780), 1769 (Fossati-Muttoni), 1791 (Books 1-3 only), 1800

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(Fossati- Muttoni), 1945 (reprinted 1951, 1968, 1976, 1980), 1979, 1980 and 1992. Palladio moves to Venice.Palladio designs Loggia del Capitaniato in Vicenza.

1571

Loggia del Capitaniato, VicenzaPalladio designs Palazzo Porto Breganze in Vicenza.Palladio's sons Leonida and Orazio die.

Palladio unsuccessful to proposes a design for the façade of the church of San Petronio in Bologna.

1572

El Greco paints (probably) Palladio's portrait, now in Royal Museum in Copenhagen. (Another apparent portrait of Palladio, attributed to Magagno, is now owned by the Valmarana family).Silvio Belli, Treatise on proportion (Venice).

Palladio designs a temporary triumphal arch and loggia for the Lido to welcome Henry III, king of France, on his state visit to Venice.

1574

 Palladio publishes I commentari di C. Giulio Cesare (Venice).

1574-15751575 The second great plague epidemic attacks

Venice.1575 Alessandro Farnese transcribes a series of

drawings from Palladio's I quattro libri.

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Palladio plans church of Il Redentore [the Redeemer] in Venice.

1576

Il Redentore, VenicePalladio (prob.) designs Valmarana Chapel in the Church of Santa Corona. Palladio consults on restoring/rebuilding the Doge's Palace in Venice after the fire in 1577.

1577

 Palladio proposes additional designs for the façade of San Petronio in Bologna.

Palladio prepares 43 illustrations for a new edition of Polybius' History. Palladio addresses letter of dedicaton to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, but the book is never published.

1578

Palladio designs the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

1580

.Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza

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Palladio designs the Tempietto for Villa Barbaro at Maser.Palladio dies at Maser August 19.

Giuseppe de Fabris: Funeral monument of Andrea Palladio (1845)

 Palladio's surviving sons, Marc'Antonio and Silla, work to complete an expanded edition of I quattro libri dell'architettura with a fifth part which Palladio himself had begun, but the project is never finished.

1581

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5.0 Conclusion

Palladio’s influence has been felt across the Western world, firstly in Europe and then in

America. The third American President and architect Thomas Jefferson turned to Palladio for the

new country’s private and public architecture, as did Catherine the Great with the architect

Giacomo Quarenghi in late eighteenth-century Russia. But it was the English, firstly with Inigo

Jones and later Lord Burlington and others, who embraced Palladio with the greatest enthusiasm.

They took up his legacy, finding him a suitable source particularly when requiring a less

extravagant architecture suitable for a new class of rich merchants and gentry.

It was Inigo Jones who, having met Scamozzi in Vicenza, and so having the opportunity to come

to know Palladio through his pupil, brought the master’s drawings to England. His own design

for the Banqueting House, Whitehall, is an exemplar, as it captures both the language as well as

the spirit of Palladio. Burlington’s Chiswick House, and even the Royal Academy’s own

Burlington House, is all indebted to Palladio, as are buildings across the country.

Palladio brought together the theory and practice of architecture, forging a new architectural

language informed by a profound understanding of classical architecture. He created a formula

and set of principles that could be applied across building types, giving equal attention to the

creation of beautiful villas, barns and palazzi. For these reasons it is not just the architects who

follow his style that have found Palladio so worthy of study. The famous twentieth-century

modernist architect Le Corbusier learnt much from him and Palladio continues to be a source of

inspiration and the focus of admiration for architects today. As Daniele Barbaro predicted,

Palladio constructed ‘many superb buildings in his native city, and elsewhere, which rival the

ancients, illuminate the moderns, and will appear marvelous to future generations’.

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