PALLADIO, p51-15'de-6. ANDREA (15IS-80). An Italian architect of the late Renaissance.
He was born at Vicenza. November 30, 1518. He studied architecture in his native city. his patron. Trissino. enabling hint to visit Rome, where he prepared himself by a thorough study both of Vitruvins and of ancient monuments. which he assimilated more thoroughly than any other archit?Tt of the Renaissance. his first great work was the magnificent two-storied ar around the Basilica of Vicenza (1545). He produced many works of both civil and religious architecture in and near his native city. which he made a great architectural centre. His sci entific treatise on architecture. I quattro lihrf dell' arehitrttura (1570). attained immediate success. The precise rules and formulas. clearly expressed. carried his style not only throughout Italy. but through Europe and Great Britain, whe're they found especial favor. Palladio be came the standard bearer of late Renaissance architecture.
Ili; strength lay rather in composition than in detail. and his originality was manifested in the knowledge. taste, and skill with which he reproduced the composition, proportions, and de of Ronuto :r•chitecture, and adapted them to the requirements of his time. The Basilica of Vicenza was epoch-making; so was his theatre (Teatro (llimpico). palaces were equally characteristic. A few had two orders of columns.
the finest of these being the Itarbarano and Chic rigiti palaces, in Vicenza. Of the more numerous palaces with but a single colossal order of pi lasters or engaged columns standing on a rustic basement. the masterpiece is the Marcantonio Tiene l'alace, which is finer even than the Porto and Valmarana palaces. Of his numerous villas the most famous is the Rotonda Capra, outside Vicenza, with circular hall in the centre and four Ionic facades; its interior ornaments in stucco are especially tine. In Venice his works were all ecelesiastical; the earliest was the atrium in front of the Church of La Carita, the church itself mining later; then came the refectory and later the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, with its beautiful tower (the facade being of later date, by Scamozzi) ; in 1562 the facade of San Francesco della Vigna ; and in 1578-80 the Church of 11 Redent ore—all of them marked by great dignity and refinement of composition. Ilis Vieentine buildings have suffered from being executed in brick, stucco, and wood, instead of stone. Consult: Seamozzi, l•'sbhriehe di Palladio (Venice. 1786) ; and the monographs by Te manza (Venice. 1762), Boito (Milan, 1833), Melani, in L'Jrt (Paris, 1890), and Fletcher (New Vo•k, 1902).