The Miracle of Palladio

In northern Italy in the sixteenth century it was Andrea di Pietro, called Palladio, who renewed the art of architecture in the spirit of classical antiquity. The starting point for this journey is the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which the master planned in 1565. By way of Padua, where Palladio was born on November 30, 1508, the trip continues to Vicenza, which was Palladio's artistic home. Here twelve of his buildings can still be admired, first and foremost the famous basilica, the city hall, whose Gothic structure the master dressed in a splendid coat of two-storey Renaissance loggias. Palladio also built magnificent country villas in a wide area surrounding the city. There is, for instance, the Villa Barbaro in Maser, which Paolo Veronese painted so marvellously that it vies with Palladio's architecture, or the Villa Cornaro in Piombina Dese, a perfect example of the classical temple front which was to influence later architecture as far away as America.

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