Best Renaissance Buildings in Vicenza, Italy

Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza, Italy

A Renaissance building in the central Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza, Italy. The
most notable feature of the edifice is the loggia, which shows one of the first
examples of what have come to be known as the Palladian window, designed by a
young Andrea Palladio. The building was originally constructed in the 15th
century and was known as the Palazzo della Ragione. In 1546 Andrea Palladio was
chosen to reconstruct the building. Palladio named the building a basilica, after the
Roman civil structures of that name. The building was completed in 1614.

curate.nd.edu>show>rn300z73f9t

The Basilica Palladiana is a Renaissance building in the central Piazza dei Signori
in Vicenza. The most notable feature of the edifice is the loggia, which shows one
of the first examples of what have come to be known as the Palladian window,
designed by a young Andrea Palladio, whose work in architecture was to have a
significant effect on the field during the Renaissance and later periods.

The building was originally constructed in the 15th century and was known as the
Palazzo della Ragione. The building, which was in the Gothic style, served as the
seat of government and also housed a number of shops on the ground floor. The
82-meter-tall tower Torre della Bissara precedes this structure, as it is known from
as early as 1172; however, its height was increased on this occasion, and its
pinnacle was finished in 1444. The 15th-century edifice had an upside-down cover,
partly supported by large archivolts, inspired by the one built in 1306 for the
eponymous building of Padua. The Gothic façade was in red and gialletto marble
of Verona, and is still visible behind the Palladio addition.

A double order of columns was built by Tommaso Formenton in 1481-1494 to

surround the palace. However, two years after its completion, the south-western
corner collapsed. In the following decades, the Vicentine government called in
architects to propose a reconstruction plan. However, in 1546 the Council of One
Hundred chose a young local architect, Palladio, to reconstruct the building starting
from April 1549. Palladio added a new outer shell of marble classical forms, a
loggia and a portico that now obscure the original Gothic architecture. He also
dubbed the building a basilica, after the ancient Roman civil structures of that
name.

In 1614, thirty years after Palladio's death, the building was completed, with the
finishing of the main façade on Piazza delle Erbe.

Since 1994 the Basilica has been protected as part of the UNESCO World Heritage
Site also including the other Palladian buildings of Vicenza. The building now
often hosts exhibitions in its large hall used for civic events.

www.spottinghistory.com>view7243

Palazzo Valmarana
The palazzo is a patrician palace in Vicenza, Italy, built by architect Andrea
Palladio in 1565 for the noble Isabella Nogarola Valmarana.
 
The facade of the Palazzo Valmarana is both one of Palladio's most extraordinary
and most individual realizations. For the first time in a palace, a giant order
embraces the entire vertical expanse of the building: evidently this was a solution
which found its origins in Palladio's experimentation with the façades of religious
buildings, such as the almost contemporary façade of San Francesco della Vigna.
Just as the nave and aisles are projected onto the same plane in the Venetian
church, so too on the façade of the Palazzo Valmarana the stratification of two
systems becomes evident: the giant order of the six Composite pilasters seems to
be superimposed on the minor order of Corinthian pilasters, in a far more evident
way at the edges where the absence of the final pilaster serves to reveal the
underlying order which supports a bas-relief of a warrior who bears the Valmarana
arms.

www.touristlink.com>italy>palazzo-valmarana

Villa La Rotonda
The villa is a 16th-century country house near Vicenza, northern Italy, and one of
the most famous buildings designed by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.
Located in the middle of a beautiful garden on a small hill on the outskirts of
Vicenza, the villa is a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1994.
The design of the villa was commissioned to Palladio by wealthy Venetian priest
Paolo Almerico in 1566; after the death of Palladio (1580), the building was
completed in 1603 by architect Vincenzo Scamozzi for the brothers Odorico and
Mario Capra who had acquired it in 1591. For that reason, La Rotonda is also
known as Villa Capra or Villa Almerico Capra.

Scamozzi made several changes to Palladio’s original design; for example, he

arguably modified the shape of the dome --- which in Palladio’s The Four Books of
Architecture is as a much taller semi-circular dome --- to resemble that of the
Pantheon in Rome, though it is debated whether the change was made by Scamozzi
of by Palladio himself.

www.inexhibit.com>mymuseum>villa-almerico-capra-la-rotunda

Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata

The Cattedrale, also known as Vicenza Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in
Vicenza, Veneto, northern Italy. It is the seat of the Bishop of Vicenza, and is
dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.

Construction of the cathedral was begun in 1482, to plans by Lorenzo of Bologna,

and completed in the 1560s. The cupola was planned by Andrea Palladio and
probably the north doorway also.

Only the original façade survived the bombing of World War II; the rest of the
present building has been reconstructed.

The maestri di cappella include Fra Ruffino d'Assisi (1525–31), Nicola Vicentino
(1563–65), Giammateo Asola and his pupil Leone Leoni (1588-1627).

The original facade is Gothic and attributed to Domenico da Venezia 16th century.
It is divided into four sections: the lower one has five arches in transoms, the
second with arches in the center of an oculus, the third is smooth, the fifth is
decorated with five statues (and two pinnacles added in 1948).

The construction of the apse in the Cathedral of Vicenza had begun in 1482 to the
design of Lorenzo da Bologna, but in 1531 it was still unfinished. Early,
temporary, roofing was erected in 1540, as a result of the possibility that Vicenza
might host the Church Council which in the end was held at Trent.

Only in 1557 did the Comune of Vicenza receive the financial means necessary
from the Republic of Venice, in the shape of a bequest left by Bishop Zeno at the
beginning of the century, and were therefore able to set in motion the work's
completion.

Andrea Palladio, the author of the new project, most probably drew up an overall
design which was however executed in two phases: from 1558 to 1559 the main
cornice was built over the windows and the drum raised, while from 1564 to
January 1566 the dome itself was constructed. The characteristic form of the
lantern, abstract and devoid of decoration, was replicated on the summit of the
cupolas of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (planned in the same years), and is
also present in some of Palladio's reconstructions of centrally planned antique
temples, such as the Mausoleum of Romulus on the Via Appia.

Since 1994, the dome, together with other Palladian buildings in and around
Vicenza, has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site City of Vicenza and
the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.

The Bell Tower

It is slightly detached from the church and placed in the street that runs along the
south side of the cathedral. It rests on a 10th-century stone base, the bell tower
dates from the twelfth century and has five bells, in the chord of Eb, the oldest still
in place was cast in the seventeenth century.