ANDREA PALLADIO

ANDREA PALLADIO
• Andrea Di Pietro Della Gondola was
born on 30 November 1508 in Padua.

• Palladio was introduced into the work

of building, in Padua. He gained his
first experiences as a stonecutter in the
sculpture workshop of Bartolomeo
Cavazza da Susanoo.

• He was employed as a stonemason to

make monuments and decorative
sculptures  in Vicenza . These
sculptures reflected the Mannerist style
of the architect Michele Sanmicheli.
• Andrea Palladio is known to be one of the most influential architects in Western
architecture. His architectural works have "been valued for centuries as the
quintessence of High Renaissance calm and harmony.”

• He designed many palaces, villas, and churches, but Palladio's reputation, initially,

and after his death, has been founded on his skill as a designer of villas.

•  The Palladian villas are located mainly in the province of Vicenza, while

the palazzi are concentrated in the city of Vicenza and the churches in Venice.

• Palladio is most known for his designs of villas and palaces as well as his books.

• Palladio's first major public project is the Basilica Palladiana. He proposed an

addition of two-storey stone buttresses reflecting the Gothic style of the existing hall
while using classical proportions.
• Andrea Palladio, a well-known talented architect from Padova, (1508-1580), was
chosen by the most powerful members of the Venetian society for numerous
important commissions.

• Palladio designed a classical Roman theatre and many churches, villas and
palaces mainly located in Venice, Vicenza, Treviso and the surrounding areas.

• A number of his works are listed in the World Heritage.

• His style ( Palladian style) brought together various Renaissance ideas, notably
the revival of Roman symmetrical planning and harmonic proportions.

• He was the first great professional architect. He was trained to build and he
practised no other art. He became fashionable all over Europe.
 ARCHITECTURAL STYLE
• Palladian architecture is a European style of
architecture derived from and inspired by the
designs of the Venetian architect Andrea
Palladio (1508–1580). That which is recognised
as Palladian architecture today is an evolution
of Palladio's original concepts.
• Palladio's design also introduces the illusion of
three-dimensional depth, an effect that is
intensified  by the strong projection of the
central columns and the shadows they cast. A villa with a superimposed portico, from
• Palladio's work was strongly based on the Book IV of Palladio's I quattro libri
dell'architettura, in an English translation
symmetry, perspective and values of the formal published in London, 1736.
classical temple architecture of the Ancient
Greeks and Romans.
• Palladianism became popular briefly in Britain during the mid-17th century, but its
flowering was cut short by the onset of the English Civil War and the imposition of
austerity which followed.
• Palladio, influenced by Roman and
Greek architecture, primarily by
Vitruvius, is widely considered the
most influential individual in the
history of Western architecture.

• The style continued to be popular

in Europe throughout the 19th and
early 20th centuries, where it was
frequently employed in the design
Palladio's Villa Rotunda
of public and municipal buildings.
• Features of the house were to become
incorporated in numerous Palladian
style houses throughout Europe over
the following centuries.
• As an architectural style it has continued
to be popular and to evolve; its
pediments, symmetry and proportions
are clearly evident in the design of many
modern buildings today.

• The Villa Rotunda Characterized by

large dome. Equal rectangles on
opposite sides of the structure and
Heavy Greek and Roman Influences. Plan for Palladio's Villa Rotunda.
 GEOMETRY IN
PALLADIO’S WORK

• All red lines are parallel

too other red lines
• All green lines are
parallel to other green
lines
• Blue circle shows
rotunda
• Light blue squares show
perpendicular
intersections
• Villa Valmarana Bressan Characterized by large Triangular roof Symmetric on both
the right and left sides Built to be accommodations for two families UN world
heritage site.
 CHARACTERISTICS
Villa Barbaro, Maser
•Plain exteriors based on (1557-58) was the first
rules of proportion. example of a temple front
•Interiors were richly used extensively on a
decorated. domestic building.
was his most famous
•Highly symmetrical.
residential design. It is
•Symmetry and balance square in plan with a
implemented by Greco- central 2 story rotonda.
Roman The central domed space
•Pediments over doors, radiates out to the 4
porticoes and to the
windows, mirrors, elegantly proportioned
fireplaces rooms in the corner. It is a
•Palladian objects follow powerful yet simple
•architectural elements scheme, one that would be
copied many times.
PALLADIAN ELEMENTS:
Essential Elements
• Scallop shells
Scallop shells are a typical motif in Greek and
Roman art. The shell is a symbol of the Roman
goddess Venus, who was born of the sea, from
a shell.

• Pediments SCALLOP SHELLS

Pediments were used over doors and
windows on the outside of buildings. They
are also found over inside doors. The design
of objects in the Palladian style often
incorporates this sort of architectural
element.
• Symmetry
Palladian design tends to be highly symmetrical. This SYMMETRY
means that when a line is drawn down the middle, each
side is a mirror image of the other. Symmetry and balance
were important in the ancient Greek and Roman
architecture that inspired Palladianism.
• Masks
Masks are faces used as a decorative motif. They are
based on examples from ancient Greek and Roman
art.
• Terms
Terms are based on free-standing stones representing
the Roman god, Terminus. They consist of a head
and upper torso, often just the shoulders, on top of a
pillar and were originally used as boundary
TERM MASK
markers.
• Externally, architraves surrounded all the openings, often partly rusticated with
heavy stones. Internally, doors, windows, and fireplaces were all surrounded by
richly decorated classical architraves, columns, and pediments.
• While many ceilings were coved and coffered, as at Woburn and Holkham, others
include pictorial scenes in plaster.

architrave

Coved and coffered ceiling

Palladian Façade: • Palladio offered a new
solution to the Renaissance
problem of placing a
classical facade in front of a
basilican cross section.
• He combined two temple
fronts: a tall one consisting
of four Corinthian columns
on pedestals that support a
pediment at the end of the
nave, superimposed over a
wide one, with smaller
Corinthian pilasters, that
matches the sloping aisle
roofs.
 Palladian Window
• The original term for a Palladian window is a serliana (or a
Serlian Motif).  It is an archway or window with three
openings, the central one arched and wider than the flanking
openings (which were rectangular and enclosed at the top by an
architrave).
• The Italian Renaissance architect/master builder, Andrea
Palladio, 1508-1580 popularized this architectural motif.  It is
so called the Serlian Motif because it was first illustrated in
Serlio’s Architecttura (1537), though it probably derived from
earlier sources like a triumphal arch (the Roman emperor
Caesar loved those to march his armies through to celebrate his
victories). 
• It was much used by Palladio, and became one of the hallmarks
of Palladianism in 17th & 18th centuries England.  It is more
commonly known as a Venetian or Palladian window.
 Floor & Wall Treatment
• Stone walls were again preferred, crowned by
correctly proportioned stone cornices. The
external appearance of the building was now
considered so important that some rooms were
unlit rather than spoil a façade with unwanted
windows.

• Walls now had plaster panels

and decorative plaques,
although many were covered
in silk damask.
 PALLADIO’S BOOKS
• The 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, one of the great masters of
Renaissance culture, has had an enduring influence on American architecture.

• Of even greater significance than Palladio's buildings is his treatise I quattro libri
dell'architettura (The Four Books On Architecture), the most successful architectural
treatise of the Renaissance and one of the two or three most important books in the
literature of architecture.

• First published in Italian in 1570, it has been translated into every major Western
language.Vitruvius (written in the 1st century BC) and Vignola (published in 1563),
was a source of inspiration for Palladio’s treatise.

• What sets Palladio’s work apart though is the clarity and precision of both the text
and the illustrations.
• All of his buildings are located in what was the Venetian Republic, but his teachings,
summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide
recognition.
• The Four Books of Architecture Andrea Palladio produced a body of
work in architecture that arguably has been the most written about
in all of Western architecture. He went on study trips to Rome and
made accurate information on classical proportions, which he later
used in his designs for buildings.
• The Four Books of Architecture:
 Orders of architecture
 Domestic architecture
 Public buildings
 Town planning
 Temples
• Numerals on the plans give widths and lengths of rooms and heights. It was the most
coherent system of proportions in the Renaissance.
• Palladio concentrates on practical aspects of the building process while at the same time
providing his readers with a set of rules and principles based on the examples of Roman
antiquity.
• In his First Book he discusses building materials and techniques, as well as the five
orders of architecture:

1. Tuscan
2. Doric
3. Ionic
4.Corinthian
5.Composite
• Palladio describes the characteristics of
each order and illustrates them. Masonry methods
• Masonry Methods as illustrated in his
As illustrated in his treatise
treatise.
• The second book discusses private town houses and country estates, almost all
designed by Palladio.
• Palladio’s woodcut engravings for the Quattro libri [1570] were probably
intended to express his architectural ideals, not the buildings as they were
actually built.
• Curiously, the history of the ownership of the Rotonda’s estate is known down to
the slightest detail, but little or nothing is known regarding the villa’s
proportions.
• The thickness of the walls and the height of the central vault are not indicated;
only the proportions of the rooms are given.
• It seems that Palladio wanted us to learn the ideals from his treatise and the
reality from his works,leaving our imagination to bridge the gap between his
theory and practice.
PLAN OF VILLA ROTUNDA 

• The significance of “the whole” and “the parts”

in Palladio’s architecture becomes clearer and
more comprehensible when it is perceived in
perspective allow us to visualize why the villa
looks bigger than it actually is Certainly, after
walking for a while in the gardens, one can
perceive the building within a virtual volume,
extending its dimensions beyond its walls.
DERIVING THE PROPORTIONS
OF THE OPENINGS

• A rectangular grid successively divided

through its diagonals and superimposed on
one of the the lateral arches of the loggia
reveals the geometrical construction of all
of the arch’s elements .

• Thus, the opening of the arch and its

pilasters, the abutment and imposts, and
the lower arch at the piano terra can all be
determined.
FAMOUS WORK BY PALLADIO

Tempietto Barbaro San Giorgio Maggiore  Basilica Palladiana

VILLA ROTUNDA  Villa Barbaro

Hall of the Muses of the Villa Godi 
 THANK YOU
GROUP-3 BATCH -A
PREPARED BY :
JINAL PATEL- 12
SARAH KADIWALA- 22
BINAL SHAH- 32
DRASHTI PRAJAPATI- 49