Palladio: Volume housebuilder

At the height of the Renaissance, Italian architect Andrea Palladio created a series of exquisite rural villas in the Veneto region that combined the functions of a farmhouse with the luxury of a townhouse. He clients were nobles with interests Venice and Vicenza but also land holdings outside of those cities, and such a building brought stability of income and position at a time defined as much by conflict as culture. For Palladio the keys to his designs were a careful arrangement of form and subtle manipulation of proportion, as I found this spring when I was lucky enough to visit and photograph about a third of them.

Born in 1508, Andrea di Pietro della Gondola was the son of a Paduan miller but was introduced to building as a teenager and soon became a stonemason. Later he was taken under the wing of Gian Giorgio Trissino, a humanist patron who ran a kind of Renaissance finishing school for gentlemen. He taught his charges military science, literature and ‘betterment’ and took Palladio to Rome to see the work of the long-past empire. This was a turning point for Palladio, who shifted to architecture. He aided Trissano initially but his own commissions finally arrived at the age of about thirty.

North east Italy (though the country proper would not exist for another three hundred years) was a centre of silk production in the 1550s, with rice and maize important products too. Farms had to include storage for crops, animals and equipment, and living space for residential staff as well as the owner and his family. Addressing both elements of this tricky brief gave Palladio the chance to develop a distinctive approach.

When setting out a villa rustica, he paid attention to the direction, elevation and position of the building in relation to the wind and the sun. Proximity to fresh water was vital. For the main villa itself, his fascination with geometry and absorption of what he had seen in Rome are obvious in his output. Simple orthogonal volumes, more complex curved shapes and close attention to how the two touched characterised his exteriors. Inside, rooms were sized as proportions of a cube: the half, full and even double cube brought elegance and harmony, chiming with theories about musical notes and their relationship to mathematics. Decoration was often limited – Palladio was keen to match his work to the means of his clientele – but frescoes and plaster mouldings were common.

Evolving this model over successive commissions produced a fascinating variety within a single typology, leaving each unique yet with a shared language…

Villa Poiana in Poiana Maggiore, 1540s

Genuinely astonishing even today, its spare Modernity seeming to have arrived from a wholly different era, this is undoubtedly the most architectonic of Palladio’s villas despite – or possibly because – it was one of his first. Showing a knowledge of Mannerist wit, as practiced by Raphael and his student Giulio Romano, the cornice is ‘wrongly’ resting on the lintels of the stone window frames, whose sides can be read as severed columns. Those roundels above the door are derived from the Nymphaeum of Genazzano in Rome, built a few decades earlier by Donato Bramante who himself had looked back to the Roman Basilica of Maxentius. The whole bravura mass inevitably calls to mind the work of architects from our own time, whether the Post-Modernists or their precursors. Thus John Soane in the 1820s, Edwin Lutyens in the 1920s and Michael Graves in the 1980s must all have found inspiration in this white cube of perfection sitting in a field of green perfused by meadow flowers. 

Villa Badoer in Fratta Polestine, 1550

Perhaps the most functional of the villas there is nevertheless a considered feel to this building. The curved wings are barchese or barns, and overcast weather makes it easy to imagine workers threshing on the cobblestones beneath the exposed beams. But the structures are elevated architecturally by their plan and the elegant sweeping colonnades, whilst the care taken by Palladio is seen most obviously in the delicate and subtle connection of the wings to the main body of the house. The frescos in its porch hint at the inside, where small, medium and large rooms are disposed and finished in more such work. Much of this contains trompe l'oeil effects to enhance the architecture, achieved  with a more modest outlay than actually building it for real.

Villa Barbaro in Maser, 1560s

From a site part-way up a hill, this astonishing palace of golden-hued stone commands its grounds, the formerly private road cutting across them and a gateway that once led to even more land. It surely stretches our sense of what might be termed a ‘farmhouse’. Palladio’s skills were here deployed for new money, clients who knew exactly what they wanted and made sure they got it. The barchese are now straight, in line with the principal frontage, for increased impact, and are terminated by extravagant pavilions whose immense gables are mounted with a sundial and astronomical clock respectively. Even these struggle to compete with the immense, carved tympanum topping the central block, whose entablature is seemingly broken by the thrusting arched window below. Niches and statuary add detail for those not entirely overwhelmed. Within, magnificent frescoes by none other than Paolo Veronese fill several of the rooms and there is a pretty, carved nympaneum immediately behind.

Villa Foscari in Malcontenta, 1560

This is one of the more well known of Palladio’s villas, which today appears as though everything has been compacted into a single densely designed block. In fact a number of ancillary buildings once adjoined the villa, which is also notable for its siting on the Brenta canal. The main approach would have been by water, as revealed in charming contemporary prints, with unusual twin staircases taking guests up to the piano nobile – literally, ‘noble storey’ – behind the portico. The garden side is devoid of columns or stairs but the fenestration has its own interest, notably the semi-circular Diocletian window motif. The real drama lies within, where deeply groin-vaulted ceilings are entirely covered in fresco work. The chimneys are very much on show and are usually described as Venetian, though Moorish might be as or more appropriate.

Villa Emo in Fanzolo, 1561

It is hard to believe this simple, dazzlingly white building with its relentlessly punched arches was designed not just by the same architect as the Villa Barbaro but at the same time. More in line with most people’s – or at least Hollywood’s – idea of a Roman farmhouse, here we see Palladio returning to his roots although there is justification since this land was actually a farm in ancient times – a Roman road still runs through it today. In contrast to Maser, the motifs here are radically reduced and the remarkable ramp was intended for horses. Palladio did make some concessions to appearance, however – the multiple chimneys necessary in such a building penetrate the roof only on the rear slope and remain below its ridgeline, so are hidden from the main entrance. And, again, the interiors are lavished with more frescos that here replicate wooden pergolas.  

This selection of Palladio’s work excludes some equally impressive villas located much closer to or even within Vicenza, his civic works and much more. In time, Palladio had gained acknowledged expertise on the entire business of architecture; his groundbreaking publication I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) set out what he has learned for the enrichment and education of others. With plans, details, sections and dimensions on the same page, he provided a handy guide to all that a designer needed. The project became a touchstone for future generations of architects too, working on a range of buildings from town halls in America to country houses in England. Not a bad legacy from some farmhouses.