Paolo almerico biography
Ever since, and in no matter what style, material or culture, certain architects and enlightened or excitable patrons have aimed to do more or less what Palladio and Almerico did years ago. Jonathan Glancey Features correspondent. The Capra family, a lineage of nobles from Vicenza, preserved the suburban villa until the beginning of the nineteenth century and under its ownership various interventions and transformations took place in line with changes in taste: the decorations the frescoes of the dome and the corner rooms in the late sixteenth century, the creation of the stuccos and the placement of the sculptures on the acroteria between the end of the century and the early years of the seventeenth century, the construction of the Chapel based on a design by Girolamo Albanese around today in the park of the nearby Villa Valmarana ai Nani , the painter's intervention Louis Dorigny on the walls of the central room on the occasion of the marriage between Marzio and Cecilia Capra in the early eighteenth century, up to the more complex structural interventions of Francesco Muttoni between and He was an ecclesiastic who, after his assignment in Rome as apostolic referendum of Popes Pius IV and Pius V, he retired to private life in his hometown: in he entrusted Palladio with the project for his new home on a hill on the outskirts of Vicenza, a bucolic refuge where he could spend the last years of his life far away from the hostility of the city's aristocracy, but at the same time a place of representation in a clearly visible position.
He added the long barchessa along the access avenue to the villa and completed the dome, no longer semi-spherical as in the Palladian project, but with a lowered vault with a central oculus inspired by the Pantheon From Rome. The Rotonda is the happy outcome of the meeting between the genius of Andrea Palladio, an architect at the peak of his career, and the nobleman from Vicenza Paolo Almerico , cultured, ambitious and haughty man.
So he wanted some frescoes to show his faith and Palladio mixed them with a Renaissance palace that looks like a Roman temple. But do you realize what inspired Palladio? It is where Andrea Palladio built some of his extraordinary buildings, mostly private villas. In the greats began restorations conservative, all at the expense of the Property.
La Rotonda as a model. The name La Rotonda refers precisely to the central circular hall with its dome. Andrea Palladio. Among the four principal salons on the piano nobile are the West Salon also called the Holy Room, because of the religious nature of its frescoes and ceiling , and the East Salon, which contains an allegorical life story of the first owner Paolo Almerico, his many admirable qualities portrayed in fresco.
Villa rotonda plan
The internal spaces, in fact, are organized according to a single person , just as the geometric relationships and symbolic references are a continuous celebration of its client, Paolo Almerico: the Rotonda merges the agricultural functions of a rural Venetian villa and the sacral dimension of a pagan temple as recalled by the columns of the four pronai or Christian symbolized by the domed vault at the center of which is the man of the sixteenth century.
Here was a Renaissance ideal made perfectly real. Last Name. Villa Rotonda from the side. The design reflected the humanist values of Renaissance architecture. Palladio classed the building as a "palazzo" rather than a villa. This carriageway is an avenue between the service blocks, built by the Capra brothers who acquired the villa in ; they commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi to complete the villa and construct the range of staff and agricultural buildings.
Villa rotonda plan dimensions
During a trip to Italy at the beginning of the 17th century, the English architect Inigo Jones he was impressed by the Rotonda and Palladio's villas: it was he who brought the seed of the spread of the genre across the Channel Palladianism , which reached the height of its splendor with Lord Burlington in the eighteenth century, spread to the rest of Europe, to the Russia of the architects Quarenghi, Cameron and Rossi, up to the United States and its colonies.
On display in a public park, the local council demolished the cast with uncontained glee. Thus, while the house appears to be completely symmetrical, it actually has certain deviations, designed to allow each facade to complement the surrounding landscape and topography. As one approaches the villa from this angle one is deliberately made to feel one is ascending from some less worthy place to a temple on high.
Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by statues of classical deities. Palladio - La Rotonda. Palladio died in and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi, was employed by the new owners to oversee the completion. In this way, the symmetry of the architecture allows for the asymmetry of the landscape, and creates a seemingly symmetrical whole.