Andrea Palladio

Palladio, Andrea 

(real surname di Pietro). Born Nov. 30, 1508, in Padua (?); died Aug. 19, 1580, in Vicenza. Italian architect. Son of a stonemason.

In 1524, Palladio moved to Vicenza, where he worked as a stonemason. He was noticed by the humanist G. G. Trissino, while taking part in the construction of the latter’s villa in Cricoli (near Veneto). Trissino encouraged Palladio to study architecture and to receive a humanistic education. Palladio traveled to Verona, Rome, Split (Croatia), and Nîmes (France) to take measurements of ancient Greek and Roman monuments.

Palladio’s structures, based on a thorough understanding of ancient architecture and influenced by Venetian Renaissance architecture, represent some of the crowning achievements of the Late Renaissance. The reconstruction of the basilica of Vicenza, also known as the Palazzo della Ragione, was Palladio’s first major work. He added to the 13th-century palace a two-story marble arcade (begun 1549) that combines Roman grandeur with Venetian freedom and rhythmic richness. Palladio also built several palaces in Vicenza, including the Thiene palace (begun 1550), the Chiericati palace (begun 1550), the Valmarana palace (begun 1566), and the Loggia del Capitanio (1571). Most of the palaces are brick structures with plastered facades embellished with classical columns.

Palladio did not view the classical orders as inflexible norms of architectural form but rather as elements with which to produce the most diversified effects. His flexibility in reckoning with the practical problems of construction was unprecedented. Relying on the organizing principle of the classical orders, Palladio thought of a wall as being not an amorphous mass but as a body having a foundation, middle supporting element, and top. In order to maintain this relationship in multistory buildings, he frequently used the colossal order, which encompasses several floors.

Palladio developed new types of palaces and provided new variations for almost all previously existing types. He achieved a natural relationship between the facade and the building’s layout, overcoming the contrast between the facade and interior courtyard characteristic of High Renaissance palaces. His palaces were well integrated in their urban surroundings, but his conception of an open architecture that blended harmoniously with its surroundings was most strongly reflected in his villas, which are imbued with a light, elegiac feeling for nature. Palladio’s villas include the Villa Rotunda near Vicenza (1551–67; completed 1580–91, architect V. Scamozzi) and the Villa Barbaro-Volpi in Moser (near Treviso, 1560–70).

In his church buildings, which belong to the late period of his career (San Giorgio Maggiore, 1565–80; the Redentore, completed 1592—both in Venice), Palladio combined the colossal and conventional orders on the facade and succeeded in reconciling the motif of a classical temple portico with the interior space and serene tranquility of a basilica. In the Olympic Theater in Vicenza (1580–85, completed by Scamozzi), which is one of the first theater buildings of the modern period, Palladio used an optical illusion to create an impression of great depth on the stage (five radiating streets behind the stage come together in an artificially intensified perspective).

Palladio is well known for his treatise The Four Books of Architecture (1570), in which he described his completed and unrealized projects, and set forth the system of classical orders and provisions for reconstructing ancient monuments (interpreting them in the Renaissance spirit of Vitruvius). He also published The Antiquities of Rome (1554) and Julius Caesar’s Commentaries (1575). Palladio greatly influenced the subsequent development of European architecture, resulting in the emergence of an individual trend in 17th- and 18th-century classicism.

WORKS

Chetyre knigi ob arkhitekture, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1938.

REFERENCES

Arkin, D. E. “Palladio v Vichentse.” In his Obrazy arkhitektury. Moscow, 1941.
Vseobshchaia istoriia arkhitektury, vol. 5. Moscow, 1967. Pages 290–308. Bolletino del Centro di studi d’architettura “Andrea Palladio.” (1958—.)
Pane, R. Andrea Palladio. … Turin, 1961.
Ackermann, J. Palladio. … Harmondsworth, 1966.

M. N. SOKOLOV