Andrea Palladio

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Andrea Palladio (November 30, 1508 – August 19, 1580), was an Italian architect, widely considered the most influential person in the history of Western architecture.

Andrea Palladio.

1 Biography
2 Palladio in popular culture
3 Chronology
4 External links

[edit] Biography

He was born Andrea di Pietro della Gondola in Padua, then part of the Republic of Venice. Apprenticed as a stonecutter in Padua when he was 13, he broke his contract after only 18 months and fled to the nearby town of Vicenza. Here he became an assistant in the leading workshop of stonecutters and masons. He frequented the workshop of Bartolomeo Cavazza, from whom he learned some of his skills.

His talents were recognised in his early thirties by Count Gian Giorgio Trissino, who later gave him the name Palladio, an allusion to the Greek goddess of wisdom Pallas Athene. In 1541 he moved to Rome to study classic architecture.

Façade of Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza.

Palladian style, named after him, adhered to classical Roman principles, similarly to styles of the Early and High Renaissance, when classical revivalism was at its peak. His architectural works have "been valued for centuries as the quintessence of High Renaissance calm and harmony" (Watkin, D., A History of Western Architecture). Palladio designed many churches, villas, and palaces, especially in Venice, Vicenza and the surrounding area. A number of his works are protected as part of the World Heritage Site Palladian Villas of the Veneto.

His style became fashionable all over Europe, for example in parts of the Loire Valley of France. In Britain, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren embraced the Palladian style. Another admirer was the architect Richard Boyle, 4th Earl of Cork, also known as Lord Burlington, who, with William Kent, designed Chiswick House. The Palladian villa configuration, consisting of a dominant central focal element flanked by lower servant wings, found resonance as a prototype for the country mansions of the English nobility, a perfect architectural expression of their position in the social order of the era. Other exponents of his work who helped to popularize Palladio's concepts include the 18th century Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni who published an authoritative four volume work on Palladio and his architectural concepts. In a letter written by Colonel Isaac A. Coles to General Hartwell Cocke in 1816, Coles related Thomas Jefferson's admiration for Palladio: "With Mr. Jefferson I conversed at length on the subject of architecture—Palladio, he said, 'was the Bible—you should get it and stick close to it...'"

He died in Maser, near Treviso.

[edit] Palladio in popular culture

Palladio's architecture also inspired a classical music piece, Palladio, by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. Many people know it by its first movement, which has been used for several De Beers diamond television commercials.

[edit] Chronology

Illustration from a 1736 English edition of I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura.

Villa La Rotonda, in I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura 1570.

1508: Born 30 November.
1521: Begins work as a stone mason.
1540: Begins his first work, Villa Godi in Lonedo.
1544: Begins construction of Villa Pisani in Bagnolo.
1545: Involved in the refurbishment of the Basilica of Vicenza.
1550: Produces drawings for Palazzo Chiericati and Villa Foscari.
1552: Begins work on Villa Cornaro and the palace of Iseppo De' Porti.
1554: Begins work on Villa Barbaro in Maser.
1556: In Udine he works on Casa Antonini and in Vicenza begins with Palazzo Thiene. While his assignments increase along with his fame, he collaborates with the patriarch of Aquileia on the edition of a book on Vitruvio, providing the drawings.
1557: Begins Villa Badoer in the Po river valley.
1558: Realises a project for the church of San Pietro di Castello in Venice and probably in the same year begins the construction of Villa Malcontenta.
1559: Begins Villa Emo in the village of Fanzolo di Vedelago.
1561: Begins the construction of Villa Pojana Maggiore and at the same time of the refettorio for the Benedictines of St. George in Venice, and subsequently the facade of the monastery Monastero per la Carità and Villa Serego.
1562: Begins the facade of San Francesco della Vigna and work on San Giorgio Maggiore.
1565: Begins the construction of Villa Cagollo in Vicenza and Villa Pisani in Montagnana.
1566: Palazzo Valmarana and Villa Zeno.
1567: Begins works for the Villa Capra "La Rotonda".
1570: He is nominated Proto della Serenissima (Illustrious citizen of Venice) and publishes in Venice I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture)
1571: Realises: Villa Piovene, Palazzo Porto Barbaran, the Loggia del Capitanio and Palazzo Porto Breganze.
1574: Publishes the 'Commentari' (commentaries) of Caesar and works on studies for the front of the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna.
1577: Begins the construction of the Il Redentore.
1580: Prepares drawings for the interior of the church of S. Lucia in Venice and in the same year on 23 March oversees the beginning of the construction of the Teatro Olimpico but dies on 19 August 1580.