The barchessas of Villa Badoer  in Fratta Polesine reveal an unusual form: one might call it a gesture of embrace . Opening gently from the main volume of the villa, they curve forward, welcoming  those who approach — just as Palladio had already imagined in the grand vision for Villa Trissino at Meledo di Sarego. There are architectures that are not merely seen: they are felt , like breaths held within stone.They do not simply stand: they perform gestures .Among these gestu

Traces, Transformations, and Echoes of the Palladian Style in once a beating heart of Central Europe I. The Echo of Palladio in the Land of the Magyars Palladian architecture in Hungary: the unexpected journey of a style No, Andrea Palladio never crossed the plains of Pannonia, nor did he contemplate the waters of the Danube or the hills surrounding Lake Balaton. And yet, centuries later, in that land of borderlands and empire, of Slavic, Magyar, and Latin interweavings, his

The day was falling when I stopped under the incomplete porticoes of my Basilica. The wooden scaffolding, pitch-black and gnarled , climbed like skeletons along the façade, enveloping the building in a lattice that seemed suspended in time. The resinous smell of damp wood mingled with the acrid scent of red-hot metals, carried by the wind from the goldsmiths' workshops nearby. I was not alone. The shadows lengthened around the workers who, on the scaffolding, were shaping the

Vicenza has always been considered the Italian city of gold, able to boast for centuries the production of about a third of all the goldsmith work of the beautiful country. Ok, Arezzo friends, we know... Do we want to say that Vicenza is itself a jewel? What do you say? But certainly, without a doubt Arezzo in turn! Let's get to us: the first document that attests to our ancient tradition dates back to 1399, when the "Constitution of the Guild of Goldsmiths of Vicenza" was i

We are above an ancient sea , when here - tens of millions of years ago - we were in the tropics of the planet. In the meantime the earth's axis has shifted, many different layers have overlapped and pressed together, until they became rock... But even today we can find the algae and corals of that coral reef that separated the open sea from a large internal plain. A reef rich in marine life that survives in the stone used by Palladio for the bases and capitals of the columns

In Vicenza, tourism was born centuries ago thanks to some important visitors who were passionate and curious about Palladio’s works, just a few years after his death. We choose just a few here, jumping from one century to the next and remaining in the proximity of what today is by far the most visited attraction. The first official tourists that history remembers were the very young representatives of the Tenshō Embassy , travelling from Japan to Europe between 1582 and 1590.

The spas of Lake Garda have always been one of the wellness destinations most loved by Italian and foreign tourists. In this article we talk to you about the spas of Sirmione and Lazise , ​​the most beautiful wellness centers on Lake Garda. The thermal baths of Sirmione, a spa center in Garda The virtues of water were already known to the Romans, precursors of the spa. Even today, wellness centers are much more than swimming pools, they are true oases of beauty, offered by u

The Scrovegni Chapel is worth a visit during your stay in Padua or a nice day trip from Venice. The Scrovegni Chapel in Padua hosts an exceptional cycle of frescoes by Giotto , considered the first of a series of great artists who contributed to the Rena edition. Despite its importance in the history of Western art, the Scrovegni Chapel does not attract as many foreign visitors as other Italian artistic masterpieces, perhaps because it is located in a city dominated by mass

A few kilometers from Verona, elegant and colourful, the town of Lazise is an obligatory stop for tourists on holiday in Veneto. Read the article to find out about the places to visit in Lazise on Lake Garda Holidays in Lazise on Lake Garda One of the most popular destinations on Lake Garda is Lazise, ​​a beautiful location south-east of Lake Garda and a very popular and lively tourist destination. The pedestrian area of ​​the historic center has preserved the buildings, gate

This article will advise you on what to eat during your stay on Lake Garda. Flavored wines, extra virgin olive oil, liqueurs, truffles, citrus fruits and freshwater fish. The Lake Garda area offers a gastronomic and wine experience to even the most demanding palates! The territory of Lake Garda The area surrounding Lake Garda offers a wide range of quality products. Lake Garda is the ideal place for gourmets and wine lovers. The area is divided into three regions, Lombardy, V

How many of us know the saying "Saint Lucia, the shortest day there is"? Well, this famous saying, however, nowadays is not exactly correct because it dates back to the period up to 1582, when the winter solstice fell on December 13th. In that same year Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar, because it no longer corresponded to reality. A calendar was therefore adopted, where scientific calculations place the shortest day at the winter solstice, which falls between 21 and 2

The Euganean Hills are a land of villas, thermal waters and wine. Find out in this article why your next trip to Veneto will be on the Euganean Hills. Euganean Hills: the unique characteristics The Euganean Hills, an isolated chain of volcanic origin that reaches 601 m. at the highest point (Monte Venda), they are located south-west of Padua and give the area a unique characteristic, containing natural, historical and artistic treasures, as well as containing some of the mo

One of the most popular ways to immerse yourself in our territory, crossing suggestive paths and less traveled streets, is the bicycle. And we at Palladian Routes know it well! So one evening, at sunset, with a warm sun warming our faces, checking one of our itineraries, we find ourselves pedaling on our Palladian E-Bikes , along the Venetian countryside, towards the Lower Vicenza area. Accompanying us are the gentle profile of the Berici Hills on the right and the conical

Everyone seems ready — truly dressed to the nines  — here in Vicenza during this April week. Not only because spring has arrived, tinting the city with the purple of blooming wisteria and giving every street a new light,but because a very special anniversary is approaching, one that celebrates Vicenza’s value and beauty on both a national and international stage. Vicenza is preparing to mark 30 years since its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List . The site “ City of

On this same day, November 30th, but 514 years ago, in Padua, I, Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, was born into a humble artisan family. I still didn't know that my life would become so prolific and important for all architecture to come. I was just a humble stonemason, until I met the person who would become my mentor, Giangiorgio Trissino : it was he who gave me the name for which I would be known by everyone, who educated me and made me gain knowledge that I never could hav

Could Mozart and Palladio not have met? Like many of the greats, they too met: of course, not physically, not historically. More precisely, it was Mozart who met Palladio , during his visit to the city that had adopted the Paduan stonemason, when he had been his contemporary. It happened 253 years ago, on March 14, 1771. Mozart is concluding his very successful tour in Italy, obviously together with his father Leopoldo. Wolfgang is in fact 15 years old, and already famous. Th

"There is truly something divine in his projects, no less than the strength of the great poet, who draws a third reality from truth and...

What a thrill to be the spokesperson for Palladian beauty in the world! And have confirmation that architecture, like a noble art , can speak multiple languages ​​and take different forms, while maintaining a universal value . It so happens that while talking with one of our lovely clients, we went to retrace the exploits of Palladio none other than in the Land of the East . To do this, however, it is necessary to recall one of the best-known Palladian works in Venice: The R

We all know the fame of this great nineteenth-century man of letters, but perhaps not many know that Ugo Foscolo lived and deeply loved the Veneto . The poet was born in Zakynthos, then under Venetian possession, in 1778 to a doctor father, trained at the University of Padua and a Greek noblewoman mother. After the premature death of his father, at the age of 14, Ugo, with his mother and brothers, moved to Venice, where he learned and practiced the Venetian dialect, honing th

Refreshing and drinkable, the Spritz - or as we call it in Veneto "the spriss" is now considered the King of cocktails in Northern Italy and beyond: with its delicate taste and moderate alcohol content it is suitable at any time, during a meal, after a long day of work and also on festive evenings with friends. But where does this sparkling aperitif originate from? There is a story about Venice that drifts across the centuries like a faint aroma of wine and salt air. The fi

The historic Grape Festival is underway in Villa Angarano, like every early autumn, at that moment of the year awaited by everyone in Bassano and the surrounding area. We celebrate wine, which for centuries, let's say to each other without quibbling – always! Bring joy and luck together to this land where everyone together, at this moment, is celebrating the grace of divine nectar. Palladio already wrote, almost five hundred years ago, of a "place famous for the precious wine

That's right, Veneto boasts the first woman graduate in the world , Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia : it is precisely in Padua that Elena graduated in philosophy in 1678. Natural daughter of the noble Giovanni Battista Cornaro, prosecutor of San Marco, and of the commoner Zanetta Boni, she was born in Venice in 1646, the fifth of seven children. She was enrolled in the honor roll of nobles at 18, when her father shelled out 100,000 ducats to elevate her and her brothers to p

Not everyone knows the Venice of its gardens , that of the 500 private gardens, adorned with every gem of nature, perhaps exotic and very colourful, but also that of the "paradise on earth" of the secret gardens of the Giudecca . With the ferry from San Marco you take the Giudecca canal to return to the station, as an alternative to the Grand Canal, passing between Dorsoduro and the "city" front of ancient Spinalonga. But if we happened to see Giudecca "from the back", we wou

It's time to celebrate, because today begins... the Venice Carnival ! Those who have been lucky enough to experience it at least once in their life, perhaps managing to avoid the busiest times, have had a unique and unforgettable experience: made up of ancient festivals and traditions, delicious pancakes, chatter and castagnole, dances and shows of varied art, fantastic processions on land and water. An intoxication with the art of comedy, all amidst majestic masks and lush c

My first project in Venice , and at the time my first church facade. It wasn't a coincidence. In the Christian circles of Vicenza everyone knew of my closeness to circles smelling of heresy. Many of my clients did not hide, or barely hid, the sharing of new ideas coming from beyond the Alps through our business channels. In Venice everything started again, thanks to Marcantonio and Daniele Barbaro , patriarch of Aquileia "in condominium with the Grimani" (but that's another s

Listen, as if it were Andrea Palladio telling... Gianfrancesco Valmarana was the brother of Giovanni Alvise , among the first great men who believed in me, for whose family I designed the Palazzo al Pozzo Rosso a couple of years later. The Valmaranas had long owned a large fiefdom in Lisiera, which was being completely reorganized at that time. I was obviously involved, in particular in the reconstruction of the villa, which resembled when I saw it Villa Trissino in Cricoli, 

Villa Foscari, known as La Malcontenta , is undoubtedly one of Palladio’s most captivating creations. A majestic residence—ancient yet strikingly modern—built for the venerable Venetian Foscari family, it still carries the spirit of their illustrious ancestor Francesco Foscari, one of the most influential doges of the Republic. Francesco Foscari’s dogeship , more than a century before the villa was erected, was the longest in the history of the Serenissima and marked the beg

Yesterday we returned to visit Palazzo Grimani in Venice . A place suspended, enchantingly, between different dimensions of soul and reason : it is worth attempting the hint of a sketch, so that enthusiasts can find inspiration to delve deeper. Giovanni Grimani was the Patriarch of Aquileia , a title that had long been a monopoly of the family. Venice, however, was pushing for a change of hands, leveraging the accusations of heresy that involved him and which would never lea

The Accademia Galleries have just opened a whole new section, six rooms along the splendid Palladian loggia, an extraordinary architectural space that not many people know about. Andrea, as we know, like Proto, does not even create a public work in Venice. Not the Rialto Bridge, not the reconstruction of the Doge's Palace after the fire: nothing to be done. However, he is the architect of the families linked to the ecclesiastical world: here are the wonderful churches, such

«It is nothing more than a spiral staircase, but you never get tired of going up and down» , wrote Goethe in his Journey to Italy. There is one project, in Palladio's Four Books , only one "modern" project, not Italian. It is the double elliptical staircase of the Château de Chambord, in France. As everyone knows, Leonardo Da Vinci decided to end his career, and his life, at the court of the cultured and refined Francesco I, with the high-sounding title of premier peintre,

The Valmarana family , that of Giovanni Alvise and his much praised wife, and later widow, Isabella Nogarole. The Valmarana family of Palazzo Valmarana (now Braga Rosa), where we are based, the business network of the Palladians, the owners of the Palladio Villas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. That of Leonardo, prince of the Olympic Academy at the Olympic Theatre. Well, that Valmarana family lives here, still, in these walls, here among the environments in which we work, here

The feeling was that of having something important to say, or rather to do, but not knowing how. The world sparkled around him, but behind the confines of his workshop, beyond the entrance halls of the patrician palaces, and beyond the walls of that Venetian city, beyond the curves of an ancient Roman road that was lost towards dreams of silk and into excavations of other lost worlds, reborn as phoenixes. Andrea moved away a little from the almost complete Ionic capital to te

Vicenza is an ancient dream , one in which we can still today dive , let ourselves go, forget for a moment — for a day, a week — that everything must be done for something, that there must be some small daily and concrete purpose. To forget a life lived in survival mode and to savour, inhale, aspire to something great, magnificent, ideal. Vicenza is real, but there is also a Vicenza that exists beyond. One that exists in the wings of the Teatro Olimpico , one that existed in

On Sunday the 21st, Palazzo Valmarana Braga in Vicenza will host the event organized by the Italian Historic Houses Association. It will be an opportunity to recall a remarkable moment  in the life of one of the most beautiful palaces  within the UNESCO-listed Palladian heritage. As so often happens, that moment was born from tragedy : the bombing of the palace during the Second World War, on March 18, when it was partly destroyed and reduced to what seemed an irrecoverable r

Vicenza is Palladio for everyone, and we could not agree more.But Palladio is not an end: he is an opening gesture, a threshold.His architecture gives the impression of something complete, and yet its true nature is generative. It invites continuations, variations, reinterpretations —some born in Vicenza, some across Veneto’s gentle inland, and others far from here, in the wider world. His presence survives not only in the architects who studied him, but in the painters and

It was an era of profound transformations and great hopes in the heart of South Africa, in those years that were shaping the future of the country. Four British colonies, Natal, Cape of Good Hope, Transvaal, and Orange Free State, came together to create a new political entity, born from the ashes of colonial rule over the Boer republics. The establishment of the Union of South Africa was an attempt to unite the diverse communities and their interests under one government, i

Let's start from the city of architecture par excellence , to rediscover the horizons that marked the life of Andrea Palladio and where he set some of his creations, together with those of who followed him took shape, in an epic adventure in the saddle of a Palladian E-Bike. Here's a taste of a stage around halfway: imagine it told in your earphones with the voice of Andrea Palladio, having just discovered a new unexpected glimpse, which will be a new chapter of the extraord

Among the different faces of Venice, there is a half-hidden one, present but not dominant, and it is the face of a mask that whispers an ancient story, older than Venice itself. Among the Gothic and oriental architectures, which make the identity of the most beautiful city in the world, there is a Venice that looks to Rome and Athens, contrasted by conservative families, faithful to the history of a city oriented towards the sea. It is the Venice of families who look to the

The only palace of mine that I was able to see finished was the one for Count Montano Barbarano , an excellent musician, passionate about ancient history like me and many others in my Vicenza. He was able to complete it first of all, obviously, Count Montano, because first of all it is necessary to finance the works, which only at that point can become the toy of an artist or a master builder, in my case of someone halfway between the two, a architect. But at a high price:

The Franciscans had built it three centuries earlier on a vineyard , the great Jacopo Sansovino - proto of Venice before me - had completely rebuilt it at the behest of Doge Andrea Gritti, who was buried here when I was little more than a boy. Thirty years later, once again thanks to Daniele Barbaro , the facade was entrusted to me by the patriarch of Aquileia . To me, not to Sansovino who was still in his place. I was the new one who was advancing, among the patricians o

With each passing year I took a step deeper into the heart of Venice . The Zeno , or Zen, one of the twelve ancient houses in Venice , in which the first body of the patrician nobility was established, concurring to elect the doge. The Zen greatly contributed to the growth and power of the city, reaching the land we now call America before Columbus , first discovering the ghost island of Frislanda in the North Sea. This will then remain, the villa of the Zeno, the villa of e

Giovanni Chiericati was the brother of Girolamo , so I was building the palace on the island of Vicenza. The villa was the first occasion for a very simple idea of mine, which I then took up elsewhere and which was so lucky all over the world. A house preceded simply by the pronaos (the part in front of the "cell", that is the closed, walled part) of a slender Ionic temple , sufficient to completely transform its appearance. A construction site that struggled to take off,

Like Palazzo Thiene , the Villa for Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene was also designed by the great Giulio Romano , the family architect who was in close contact with the Gonzagas of Mantua.​ At the beginning of my career as an architect, I was actually the director of the works here, knowing how to show the masons how to do without stone as much as possible, in favor of terracotta even in different shaped parts. I was a construction man myself. ​But soon Francesco died, at

Brother of Zuanne, father of Carrier, Daniele and Marco of the Villa di Bagnolo , was Francesco Pisani , another Venetian patrician whom I could call a friend. The Pisani dal Banco it can be said that they ruled Venice itself. The credit of the state for the banking family totaled hundreds of thousands of ducats, so without the funds of the Pisans, it can be said that Venice would not have held up the League of Cambrai. Francesco was the churchman of the Pisans, a cardina

I had my wings unfold to offer the maximum opening, the widest image to the eye, of what was transformed from a house into a palace with the least effort. The dovecote towers at the ends conclude the barchesse , which do not actually reach the central main body, thus leaving it free from stables and cellars, elevated on a high podium preceded by a triumphal staircase . Leonardo Emo. Leonardo like his grandfather, who had left him the estate in which he had introduced, for t

Giovanni Alvise , the emperor's first reference here in Vicenza, was one of my great supporters, from the very beginning. He, obviously in addition to Giangiorgio Trissino and Gerolamo Chiericati , worked in my favor on several occasions in the city council to give me the most important public work in the city, that of the loggias of the basilica . Many years later I was able to repay, having in the meantime continued to work for the Valmarana family , with this building at

Gerolamo Chiericati had been one of my first supporters, together with Giangiorgio Trissino and Giovanni Alvise Valmarana , to obtain the first public work in Vicenza, the loggias of the Palazzo della Ragione. I had the opportunity to repay him a few years later, suggesting that he seize an extraordinary opportunity: not one of the many buildings on the main road, which will then take my name: but the scenic backdrop of the landing in Vicenza , obviously from Venice, on the

I was 67 when a terrible plague epidemic broke out in the middle of summer, killing one in three Venetians. After one year, the Senate decides to invoke divine help by voting for a new church . A few years ago I had succeeded Sansovino in the position of Proto della Serenissima, or chief architect of the Republic : I was designing inspired, relentlessly, an intertwining of floors and volumes of white marble, bricks and marmorino that grew quickly, for the first procession

If the city palace in Contrà Riale for Ludovico and Francesco Trissino has remained on paper, their villa has been started, one can read more about it on the spot than an intention. If it had been built in its entirety ... A grandiose work , a multi-level acropolis culminating in another Rotonda , embraced by the barchesse that in these same years managed to see the light at Villa Badoer . Villa Trissino in Meledo is only one of the many reflections of the historical, cultu

Poetry. It is poetry created by history, which I could never have come up with on my own. Also because the Porto, or Da Porto , wanted a palace, and not two bays, to dominate that Piazza Castello overlooked by a palace of Francesco Thiene, husband of Isabella Da Porto. Yet history broke my vision, making it a fragment, like the trace of an ancient ruin, the representation of an idea in its creative act, an architectural unfinished , a section through the centuries. Da Porto