Palladio, Andrea

(Andrea di Pietro della Gondola; 1508-1580)

   Architect and theorist from Vincenza who trained in Padua as a stonemason and was active in Venice and its outlying areas. The name Palladio derives from Pallas Athena (Minerva), goddess of wisdom, bestowed on him by his protector and earliest patron, the humanist and amateur architect Giangiorgio Trissino. Trissino took Palladio to Rome in 1541 so he could study the ancient remains and the works of the moderns. The work that established Palladio's reputation is the Basilica of Vincenza (beg. 1549), a commission he received after Giulio Romano's design was rejected by the town council. Palladio's design for this structure borrows heavily from Jacopo Sansovino's Library of St. Mark in Venice (1537-1580s), particularly in the repetition of arches and the play of voids and solids that grant the structure a rhythmic quality. After this, Palladio became the favored architect of the aristocracy in Vincenza. Among the palaces he built for them are the Palazzo Thiene (beg. c. 1542), the Palazzo Valmarana (beg. 1565), and the Villa Rotonda (c. 1566-1570), this last among his greatest masterpieces. Built as a pleasure home for the wealthy patrician Paolo Almerico, the building features four classical porticoes situated on the cardinal points and a dome inspired by that of the Pantheon in Rome. The numerical proportions of the building's plan are based on ancient Greek musical ratios, embracing a concept that had existed since antiquity that the same numerical relations that are pleasing to the ear can also be pleasing to the eye. Palladio's Teatro Olímpico (1580-1584), also in Vincenza, was an attempt to reconstruct an ancient Roman theater Vitruvius described in his architectural treatise. In Venice, Palladio built two major churches, San Giorgio Maggiore (beg. 1566) and Il Redentore (beg. 1577). Both present two interlocking temple façades to compensate for the different heights of the interior nave and aisles. Palladio's Quattro Libri, a treatise on architecture, caused wide diffusion of his works, particularly in England where Inigo Jones introduced the Palladian vocabulary, thereby initiating a new movement that was to last well into the 18th century.