Architecture

of the
Renaissance
 WHEN DOES THE ARCHITECTURE OF
THE RENAISSANCE TAKES PLACE ?

BAROQU
NEO-
MEDIEV

MODER
GHOTIC / RENAISSANC CLASSICISM
AL

PRE ROMANESQE

N
E
ROMANESQE E ROMANTICIS
M

1400 1700 1900 2000

500 1000 1600

HIGH
RENAISSANCE RENAISSANC MANNERISM
E

1400 1500 1520 1600

2
PERIODS OF THE RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY
1. EARLY RENAISSANCE PERIOD (Beginning 15th Century)
• Period of learning, Transitional Period from Gothic to Renaissance.
• Designers were intent on the accurate transcription of Roman elements

2. HIGH RENAISSANCE or PROTO-BAROQUE (Late 15th Century – Early 16th

Century)
Renaissance became an individual style in its own right
• Purist or Palladian, where Roman tradition was held in high respect (represented by
Andrea Palladio)
• Proto-Baroque, where there was more confidence in using the acquired vocabulary
freely (represented by Michelangelo)
• Mannerist, where practices which had no Roman precedent were interspersed with
the usual buildings, or entire buildings were conceived in a non-Roman way.
Mannerists used architectural elements in a free, decorative and illogical way,
unsanctioned by antique precedent

[Link] PERIOD (17TH Century – 1750)

• Architects worked with freedom and firmly-acquired knowledge.
• The true nature of Renaissance as a distinctive style began to emerge.
• Baroque saw architecture, painting, sculpture and the minor arts being used in
harmony to produce the unified whole.

4. NEO-CLASSICAL OR ANTIQUARIAN PHASE (1750-1830)

• The phase in western European Renaissance architecture, 1750-1830, when
renewed inspiration was sought from ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
 A CULTURAL RÉVOLUTION

• The cultural revolution of the Renaissance began in Italy in the city

of Florence in the early 15th Century .

• It substituted itself to Gothic architecture to return to the

Antique architecture at the apogee of all arts.

• The Renaissance artists were versatile, they searched of the absolute

knowledge.

• Architecture intellectualized and became thus a science in itself

and the architect is a synthesis person that must not only master
drawings, but also perspective, geometry and specific language of
architecture.
 THE ARCHITECTS OF THE
RENAISSANCE
• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 –1446)
• Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396-1472)
• Leon Battista Alberti( 1404-1472)
• Donato Bramante (1444 –1514)
•
• Andrea Palladio (1508 –1580)
• Giacomo da Vignola (1507 –1573)
• Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 – 1564)
 FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI
• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was one of the foremost
architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance.
• He is perhaps most famous for his discovery
of perspective and for engineering the dome of
the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also include
other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering
and even ship design. His principal surviving works are to be
found in Florence, Italy.

FILIPPO LINEAR PERSPECTIVE

BRUNELLESCHI

SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE CATHEDRAL

 FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI- LIFE
• Brunelleschi was born in Florence, Italy in 1377.
• Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education intended to
enable him to follow in the footsteps of his father, a civil servant.
• Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo enrolled in the Arte della
Seta the silk merchants' Guild, which also included goldsmiths,
metalworkers, and bronze workers.
• He became a master goldsmith in 1398.
• It was thus not a coincidence that his first important building commission,
the Ospedale degli Innocenti, 'Hospital of the Innocents', came from the
guild to which he belonged in 1419
 FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI- LIFE
• In 1401, Brunelleschi competed against Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young rival, and five
other sculptors for the commission to make the bronze reliefs for the door of the
Florence baptistery.
• Brunelleschi's entry, "The Sacrifice of Isaac," was the high point of his short career
as a sculptor, but Ghiberti won the commission.
• For the next ten years, Brunelleschi and his friend Donatello, one of the most
influential sculptors of the era, went to Rome to study ruins. People of the era
loved ancient Greek and Roman culture, but until Brunelleschi and Donatello,
nobody had really studied their architecture. He was especially interested in Roman
engineering and the use of fixed proportion and Roman vaults. The construction of
the Pantheon - especially the dome - fascinated him. Brunelleschi dedicated
himself to understanding how it stayed up, which included pouring BAPTISTERY
FLORENCE Roman concrete
over a massive timber frame. (BATTISTERO DI SAN GIOVANNI).

LORENZO GHIBERTI
FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI- LIFE
 LORENZO GHIBERTI-
“GATES TO PARADISE”
Ghiberti went on to complete another
set of bronze doors for the baptistery
with the help of Renaissance giant
Donatello.
Michelangelo later called it “ Gates
to Paradise”
 BRUNELLESCHI’S MASTER PIECE –
DOME OF FLORENCE CATHEDRAL
Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria
del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in
1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio
and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome
engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

In 1419 Filippo was given the task of completing the dome

for the Cathedral of Florence. Work began in 1420 and
was completed in 1436.

• The dome is 45 mts wide

• Brunelleschi drew upon his knowledge of ancient Roman
construction as well as lingering Gothic traditions to
produce an innovative synthesis.
• Employed the Gothic pointed arch cross section instead
of a semi circular one
• To reduce dead load, he created a double shell as was
done in the Pantheon
• Employed 24 vertical ribs and 5 horizontal rings of
sandstone, as observed in the ruins of Roman
construction
• The cupola on top was a temple of masonry acting as a
weight on top of the dome.
• Designed special machines for construction.
13
St. MARIA NOVELLA
Location Florence, Italy
Date 1434 to 1437
Building Type church
Construction System cut stone masonry
Climate mediterranean
Context urban
Style Renaissance
Notes Round plan.

Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of

the Angels) is the former church of a
now-defunct monastery of that name
in Florence, Italy. It belonged to
the Camaldolese congregation, which
was a reformed branch of
the Benedictines.

The congregation is based on the

hermitage which was founded in 1012
by the hermit St.
Romuald at Camaldoli, near Arezzo,
hence the name.

Very little of the medieval building 17

exists today.
• Brunelleschi was commissioned by the famous Medici family to work on a design for the
oratory in what was then still a monastery at the site of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
• The oratory was to be positioned at a corner of the monastery along an outer wall but work
ceased in 1437 due to a lack of funds, and it was not re-started until 1503 when a rather
makeshift wooden roof was erected but fell into disrepair not long after.
• The building was not really completed fully until well into the 1930's when it assumed it's
current appearance and was given over to the University in the city, prompting the modern
name of Rotonda degli Scolari, or Scholars' Rotunda.

ELEVATION PLAN SECTION

 LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI( 1404-
•
1472)
Leon Battista Alberti (Feb 14, 1404 – April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author,
artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer;

• He epitomized the Renaissance Man.

• He was a classical theorist who saw architecture as a way to address societal order.

• Alberti defined the Renaissance architect as a universalist, an intellectual, a man of genius and a
consort to those in positions of power and authority. He himself was a Renaissance man.
 LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI-
BIOGRAPHY
• Leon Battista Alberti was born in 1404 in Genoa to a wealthy Florentine father who had been
exiled from his own city, but who was allowed to return in 1428.

• Alberti, whose mother is unknown, and who was probably illegitimate, was sent to boarding
school in Padua, then studied Law at Bologna.

• He lived for a time in Florence, then travelled to Rome in 1431, where he took holy
orders and entered the service of the papal court.

• At this time he studied the ancient ruins, which excited his interest in architecture and strongly
influenced the form of the buildings that he designed.
 LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI- AUTHOR

 He distinguished himself as a writer while he was still a child at school, and by the age of twenty
had written a play which was successfully passed off as a genuine piece of Classical literature.

 In 1431 and early 1432 he accompanied Cardinal Albergati on a tour of northern Europe.
 Soon after this Alberti wrote Descriptio urbis Romae as an index for an archeological map of
Rome and in 3 months composed the first three books of Della famiglia, which is concerned with
domestic life and the education of children.

 Leon Battista Alberti wrote the first book on Italian grammar and a groundbreaking work on
cryptography. He is credited with inventing the cypher wheel.

 De Statua (On Sculpture)

Between 1434 and 1436 he was in Florence (which he seems to have regarded as his home, despite
his cosmopolitan life) and it is during this period that his interest in visual art first becomes apparent.
The undated treatise De Statua (On Sculpture) was probably his first essay in this field. In it, Alberti
recommends the sculptor to be guided both by an observation of nature and by academic
study, entailing a knowledge of proportional theory. It also contains the first known definition of
sculpture as an additive process, as in clay modeling, or a subtractive one, as in carving.

 In 1435, he began his first major written work, Della pittura, ( on painting ) in which, inspired by
the burgeoning of pictorial art in Florence in the early 15th century, he analyses the nature of
painting and explores the elements of perspective, composition and colour.
 wrote an architectural treatise called “De Re Aedificatoria”
 DE RE AEDIFICATORIA
• De re aedificatoria (English: On the Art of Building) is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista
Alberti between 1443 and 1452.
• Although largely dependent on Vitruvius' De architectura, it was the first theoretical book on the subject written
in the Italian Renaissance and in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture.
• It was followed in 1486 with the first printed edition of Vitruvius.
• Alberti’s Ten Books consciously echoes Vitruvius' writing, but he also adopts a critical attitude toward his
predecessor.
• In his discussion, Alberti includes a wide variety of literary sources, including Plato and Aristotle, presenting
concise version of sociology of architecture.
• De re aedificatoria is subdivided into ten books and includes:
• Book One: Lineaments
• Book Two: Materials
• Book Three: Construction
• Book Four: Public Works
• Book Five: Works of Individuals
• Book Six: Ornament
• Book Seven: Ornament to Sacred Buildings
• Book Eight: Ornament to Public Secular Buildings
• Book Nine: Ornament to Private Buildings
• Book Ten: Restoration of Buildings
• In his survey of desirable floor plans for sacred buildings— "temples" in his phrase— Alberti begins with the ideal
form of the circle, which is expressed in numerous examples of Nature. Nine ideal centrally-planned geometrical
shapes are recommended for churches; besides the circle he lists the square, the hexagon, octagon, decagon
and dodecagon, all derived from the circle, and, derived from the square, rectangles that exhibit the square and a
half, square and a third and double square, all of which have enharmonic parallels in music.
• Chapels add small geometric figures to the basic circles and polygons to give a great variety of floor plans, in
which each geometrical figure retains its clear unity and simple ratios that bind all elements of the plans and
elevations into a harmonic unity.
• De Re Aedificatoria remained the classic treatise on architecture from the 16th until the 18th century.
 DE RE AEDIFICATORIA – ON THE ART OF
• BUILDING
Alberti sought to improve on the Roman author’s
effort to provide the Renaissance with a more
coherent and logical basis for theory.

• Aberti’s grounding of Renaissance architecture in

the imitation of nature, his emphasis on its
social or cultural importance, his definition of
it as a professional discipline, and the pre-
eminence he placed on beauty and harmonic
proportions established the theoretical focus
of the next four centuries.

• The new conception of architecture begins with

his description of a building as “a form of
body, which like any other consists of
lineaments and matter, the one the product of
thought, the other of nature” .

• The intent and purpose of lineaments “lies in

finding the correct, infallible way of joining and
fitting together those lines and angles which
define and enclose the surfaces of the
building”.

• “Beauty,” notes Alberti in Book IV, “is that

reasoned harmony of all the parts within a
body, so that nothing may be added, taken
away, or altered, but for the worse”.
 ALBERTI- ARCHITECTURAL WORKS
For the Rucellai family in Florence Alberti designed several buildings, the façade of
Palazzo Rucellai, executed by Bernardo Rosselino, the façade of Santa Maria Novella,
the marble-clad shrine of the Holy Sepulchre, and perhaps also the Capella Rucellai.

Some dates vary from source to source; these come from Franco Borsi. Leon Battista
Alberti. (New York: Harper & Row,1977)

• First important commission- Façade of Palazzo Rucellai (1446–51)

• S. Francesco, Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini (1447,1453-60) - commission

from Sigismondo Malatesta to transform the Gothic church of San Francesco
in Rimini into a memorial chapel, the Tempio Malatestiano.

• Completion of the facade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence (1448–70).

• San Sebastiano, Mantua (begun 1458) incomplete

• Pienza, possibly as consultant (1459–62)

• Sepolcro Rucellai in San Pancrazio (1467)

• Tribune for Santissima Annunziata, Florence (1470, completed with alterations, 1477).

• Basilica at Sant'Andrea, Mantua (begun 1471)

ALBERTI- ARCHITECTURAL WORKS
 ALBERTI- PALAZZO RUCELLAI
Architect Leon Battista Alberti built Rucellai palace for the merchant Giovanni Rucellai in 1446.
The site was situated on the north from Arno River in the west part of the Florence. This site
was quite close to main town squares and the most important churches of town, it shows the
importance of Rucellais family. For emphasizing the presence of the palace in the city Alberti
created a triangular shaped square in front of it and on its north side located the loggia for
accepting visitors.
• First important commission- Façade of Palazzo Rucellai (1446–51)
• First important commission- Façade of Palazzo Rucellai (1446–51)
 ALBERTI- PALAZZO RUCELLAI
• First important commission- Façade of Palazzo Rucellai (1446–51)
Interior court
• Special eye catcher of this palace is its pilaster facade, which is the first example of a new
façade type, which shows an antique structure of the wall.
• Alberti relates on the rules of Vitruvian proportions.
• The ancient model for this is Colosseum in Rome, which is also arranged in a three-floor
pilaster façade.
• The palace façade is there to show the power and the importance of Rucellais.
• Alberti used different types of pilasters to reach the typical order of the façade of the
renaissance palace.
• The Rucellai palace was not a new building on the site. It elevates from the summary of
houses that belonged to Rucellai family.
• Despite of constructing system of palace is wall system,the façade demonstrates the other
solution, which has only decorative function, it is post and girder construction system so the
tectonic axes show the tectonic of classical order.
• On the façade you can find also more other kinds of proportional systems like golden
section, rational proportions and others.
• Another interesting part we work with is the basis that has the same high as the high of
human.
• The plinth has perfect dimension to sit on but the original use of it was to have better access
to horse saddle.
THREE TIERS
• Like traditional Florentine palazzi, the façade is divided into three
tiers.
• But Alberti divided these with the horizontal entablatures that run
across the facade (an entablature is the horizontal space above
columns or pliasters).
• The first tier grounds the building, giving it a sense of
strength. This is achieved by the use of cross-hatched, or
rusticated stone that runs across the very bottom of the building,
as well as large stone blocks, square windows, and portals of post
and lintel construction in place of arches.
• The overall horizontality of this façade is called “trabeated”
architecture, which Alberti thought was most fitting for the homes
of nobility.
• Each tier also decreases in height from the bottom to top.

• On each tier, Alberti used pilasters, or flattened engaged

columns, to visually support the entablature.
• On the first tier, they are of the Tuscan order.
• On the second and third tiers, Alberti used smaller stones to give
the feeling of lightness, which is enhanced by the rounded arches
of the windows, a typically Roman feature.
• Both of these tiers also have pilasters, although on the second
tier they are of the Ionic order, and on the third they are
Corinthian.
• The building is also wrapped by benches that served, as they do
now, to provide rest for weary visitors to Florence.
The loggia

In addition to the façade, Alberti may have also designed an adjacent loggia (a covered
colonnaded space) where festivities were held. The loggia may have been specifically built for an
extravagent 1461 wedding that joined the Rucellai and Medici families. It repeats the motif of the
pilasters and arches found on the top two tiers of the palazzo. The loggia joins the building at an
irregularly placed, not central, courtyard, which was probably based on Brunelleschi‘s Ospedale
degli Innocenti.
ALBERTI- SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
• The marble facade of Santa Maria Novella is one of the most important examples of the
Florentine Renaissance, despite having been initiated in previous periods. It was only finally
completed in 1920.

• The name of Giovanni Rucellai, the wonderful "sponsor" - as one might say today - of the
facade of Santa Maria Novella, is written in huge letters on the pediment above the basilica,
followed by the date of its completion (1470). The date of the beginning of work is less certain,
but it was probably not before 1458.

• The idea itself dates back to the Council of Florence (1439-1442), whose committees met in
Santa Maria Novella and were presided over by Pope Eugenius IV and subsequently by the
young Leon Battista Alberti.

• Before Alberti the facade of Santa Maria Novella was bare like many other Florentine
churches including Santa Maria del Fiore, Santa Croce and San Lorenzo.

• To make matters worse, six “tombs encased in marble”, i.e. six graves of noble citizens,
were embedded in the facade and immovable since they were situated under as many arches
and two smaller rather unattractive doors, decorated in the style of the period and covered
with white and dark green striped marble.

• Alberti’s greatness proved the glue necessary for a "modern" solution using a rigid Gothic
structure, i.e. the ability to harmonize nobly the existing elements with the new style.
• The facade reflects the influences of then
recently rediscovered geometric and
mathematical studies applied to nature and
art that were a part of the revival of Platonic
philosophy which found its center in the
Florence of the day.
•
• Triangles, circles, squares, rectangles and
attached geometrical figures cover the
architectural landscaped designed by the
brilliant architect to form a wonderful series of
harmonic relationships.

• First of all, he delineated the boundary of the

rectangular base with two large pillars,
between which he placed four columns,
supporting a cornice decorated with a first
motif, the Rucellai family emblem.

• Between the two central columns he opened a

large arched portal, hemmed in by two
pillars with Corinthian capitals.

• The three lunettes above the doors were

painted by Ulisse Cocchi.
• The first pediment supports a broad band of decorated squares, over which extends a
second cornice.

• Here starts the upper wall of the nave, attached to the cornices by four half pillars with the
pre-existing large circular window in the middle and the two "ears" decorated with
rosettes of inlaid marble on either side.

• Finally, the wall is crowned above by a triangle, the Tympanum, with a large sun in the
center, emblem of the neighborhood and the convent of Santa Maria Novella.
Green and white marble Tuscan style incrustation
Scroll buttress simultaneously unites the broad
lower and narrow upper level, and screens the
sloping roofs over the aisles.
Tuscan style green and white
Tympanum painting above main portal of St. Dominic
Tympanum -the space enclosed by a lintel and an arch over
By using old-fashioned marble incrustations, but making them quite flat, Alberti gave
his Classical temple façade the appearance of a three-dimensional sculptured
Corinthian entablature
Green and white marble Tuscan style incrustation in the frieze
Green and white marble Tuscan style incrustation
Blind arcades
Green and white marble Tuscan style incrustation
Blind arcades
• The height of Santa Maria Novella (to the tip of the pediment) equals its width, so that the
entire facade can be inscribed in a square.

• The upper structure in turn, can be encased in a square one-fourth the size of the main
square;
• The cornice of the entablature that separates the two levels halves the major square, so that
the lower portion of the building becomes a rectangle that is twice as wide as it is high; and
the areas outlined by the columns on the lower level are squares with sides that are about
one-third the width of the main unit.
Throughout the facade, Alberti defines areas and relates them to each other in terms of
proportions that can be expressed in simple numerical ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:3, and so on).

In his treatise, Alberti uses considerable space to propound the necessity of such harmonic
relationships for the design of beautiful buildings. Alberti shares this conviction with Brunelleschi,
and it is basically this dependence on mathematics - a belief in the eternal and universal
validity of numerical ratios as the source of beauty - that distinguishes the work of these two
architects from that of their medieval predecessors. In this respect, Alberti and Brunelleschi are
reviving the true spirit of the High Classical age of fifth-century Greece, as epitomized by the
sculptor Polykleitos and the architect Iktinos, whose canons of proportions for the perfect statue
and the perfect temple Alberti would have known secondhand through the architectural treatise of
Vitruvius.
The facade of Santa Maria Novella is an ingenious solution to a difficult design problem.

On one hand, it adequately expresses the organization of the structure to which it is

attached; at the same time. it subjects preexisting and quintessentially medieval features
like the large round window on the second level to a rigid geometrical order that instills
a quality of Classical calm and reason.

This facade also introduces a feature of great historical consequence: the scrolls that
simultaneously unite the broad lower and narrow upper level and screen the sloping
roofs over the aisles

With variations. such spirals will appear in literally hundreds of church facades throughout the
Renaissance and Baroque periods.

By using old-fashioned marble incrustations but making them quite flat, Alberti gave his
Classical temple façade the appearance of a three-dimensional sculptured structure
projected onto an incorporeal surface.
The inside is in the shape of an Egyptian cross in Romanesque-Gothic style. It is divided by
pillars of various styles that support pointed arches and vaults
 Design principles in Renaissance
Architecture
The Renaissance style places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry
and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of
classical antiquity and in particular ancient Roman architecture, of which
many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and
lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches
and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular
profiles of medieval buildings.

Alberti’s belief in an absolute numerical scheme for beauty and proportion

was perhaps his most important contribution to Renaissance theory.
DONATO BERMANTE

60
61
62
MICHELAN
GELO
•Michelangelo's reputation as an
artist and true innovator led to
commissions extending beyond
just frescos and sculptures
•The artist worked on several
impressive architectural plans
across Italy during his lifetime.
Some of these projects were
implemented soon after, whilst
others never got beyond the
planning stages. The stage of
architectural drawing required an
artist to be experienced in his
craft and as such most of these
commissions came towards the
end of the Michelangelo's career.
It was then that his reputation
and technical knowledge would
be at it's highest.

63
•Michelangelo took over a
building site at which four piers,
enormous beyond any
constructed since ancient Roman
times, were rising behind the
remaining nave of the old basilica.
He also inherited the numerous
schemes designed and redesigned
by some of the greatest
architectural and engineering
minds of the 16th century. There
were certain common elements in
these schemes. They all called for
a dome to equal that engineered
by Brunelleschi a century earlier
and which has since dominated
the skyline of Renaissance
Florence, and they all called for a
strongly symmetrical plan of
either Greek Cross form, like the
iconic St. Mark's Basilica in Venice,
or of a Latin Cross with the
transepts of identical form to the
chancel, as at Florence Cathedral.

64
 65
• St. Peters Bascilica
Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae- Elevation Showing the Exterior of Saint
66
Peter's Basilica from the South as Conceived by Michelagelo (Published in
View of the Campidoglio as re-designed by Michelangelo from the 'Speculum
67
Romanae Magnificentiae
Laurentian Library vestibule 68
 69
Palazzo Farnese Window Michelangelo Metropolitan Museum
ANDREA PALLADIO

Palladio was born on 30 November 1508 in Padua

and was given the name Andrea di Pietro della
Gondola.[5] His father, Pietro, called "della
Gondola", was a miller. From an early age, Andrea
Palladio was introduced into the work of building.
When he was thirteen, his father arranged for him to
be an apprentice stonecutter for a period of six
years in the workshop of Bartolomeo Cavazza da
Sossano, a noted sculptor, whose projects included
the altar in the Basilica del Carmine in Padua.[6]
Bartolomeo Cavazza is said to have imposed
particularly hard working conditions: Palladio fled
the workshop in April 1523 and went to Vicenza, but
was forced to return to fulfil his contract. [7] In 1524,
when his contract was finished, he moved
permanently to Vicenza, where he resided for most
of his life. He became an assistant to a prominent
stonecutter and stonemason, Giovanni di Giacomo
da Porlezza in Pedemuro San Biagio, where he
joined the guild of stonemasons and bricklayers. He
was employed as a stonemason to make
monuments and decorative sculptures. [2]

70
 71
One of the first works by Palladio, Villa Godi (begun 1537)
 72
Hall of the Muses of the Villa Godi (1537–1542)
 73
Villa Piovene (1539)
• There were more than 20 Villas built
by Palladio in the Véneto region,
and nowadays they are World
Heritage sites. The Villas are
inserted in the landscape, and
they produce a harmony
between the solid volume and
the natural space which
surrounds them. Their stunning
façades have a classic style and are
dominated by columns and gables.
They are open to the landscape to
enjoy the views from the inside part
of the villas and their galleries.
Amongst all of them, the Villa
Capra, another name used
for La Rotonda, is the most
important model, where nature
and the architectural volume
are fused under ideal
proportions.

74
Villa Rotonda
 75
Villa Rotonda