VICENZA, The capital of the Province of Vicenza. Italy, situated at the con fluence of the lletrone and the navigable Baechi glione, 41 miles by rail west-northwest of Venice (31ap: Italy, F 2). The encircling plain. studded with villas and rich in vineyards, is very beautiful. Seven bridges span the rivers. The city lies in a compact shape, and is snr rnumled by a moat and by wails f in ruins. :Many of the magnificent palaces for Whiell the city is justly famed are by Palladio. The Piazza de' Signori, the remarkably fine square in the centre of the town. contains the Palazzo della 11agiones or town hall. surrounded by the splendid Basiliea Palladiana—a beautiful eol onnsole having two stories and with a slender campanile 205 feet high. In the handsome Pa lazzo Chierecati is the valuable municipal mu seum with some good paintings, and archasologi eal and natural history colleet ions. Near hy. in the northeastern part of the city. is the fine wooden Teatro olimpieo by Palladio, finished in 151. The (-adults scenery in its interior repre sents a kind of piazza with diverging streets. On Monte Berle°, looming picturesquely on the south of the city, stands the pilgrimage church of 31adonna del Monte, containing a num ber of paintings by Bartolommeo 31ontagna.
East of it is situated the well-known but now ruined villa Botonda Palladiana, a square struc ture with a Greek colonnade, and a round domed room in the centre.
Vicenza has an academy of science, literature, and art. There is a public library of over 50,000 volumes. The Corpus Christi festival is of great interest. The principal industry is the produc tion of silk and silk goods. Straw hats, woolen goods, leather, machinery, and musical instru ments are also manufactured. The trade is ac tive in wine, grain, and vegetables. Population (commune), in 1551, 3!1,431: in 1901, 44,777.
Vicenza, the Boman Vicctia, rose into promi nence in the early part of the Diddle Ages as the capital of a Lombard duchy. It was one of the cities which, handed together in the Lombard League, opposed Frederick Barbarossa in the twelfth century. It was stormed and pillaged in 1230 by the Emperor Frederick II. Having freed itself from Padua in 1311, it was success ively in the hands of the Scala and Visconti families. It became subject to Venice in 1404.