Visiting the villas built by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), one inevitably asks oneself how people lived there in the sixteenth century. Palladio articulated the villas as "small towns" (piccole città) that formed a unit with adjacent service buildings and farm fields. Within their walls lived a multitude of people of all ages, social backgrounds and various skills. They were the venue for significant moments of public life. In these houses, the principles of hygiene, privacy and comfort, which we consider essential today, did not apply; furniture as such, did not exist. Living with Palladio in the Sixteenth Century investigates how Palladio's houses, their floors, rooms and measurements are designed to structure the life of such a heterogeneous family of people. It analyzes their hierarchical structure with the owner (padrone) at the top and everyone involved in the everyday running of the household (famiglia minuta) at the bottom. This book fills a decisive gap in research literature on the famous Italian architect by looking at how Palladio prioritized the domestic functions of his private buildings.

During the Renaissance, the contest to decide the order of rank among the fine arts, architecture, painting, and sculpture was an issue that also occupied the famous architect Andrea Palladio. He was convinced that architecture spoke for itself and did not require any ornamentation through painting. Nevertheless, frescos adorn the walls and ceilings of many of his villas. At the Villa Malcontenta, for example, one of Venice's best-known fresco painters of the day, Giovanni Battista Zelotti, was commissioned to design the interior. In Frescos, Antonio Foscari analyzes this fresco cycle, one that not only represents an outstanding example of trompe l'oeil based on architectural structures-and which is closely modeled on Palladio's ideals-but also sheds light on formative events within the family that commissioned Palladio. This publication contains a wealth of historical documents as well as photographs of the frescos by Matthias Schaller.

Andrea Palladio's villa architecture is still admired for its elegance and harmony, but little is known about the person behind the buildings. Experienced Palladio researcher Guido Beltramini has worked meticulously on material from historical documents about Palladio's person and life, and assembled a full picture of the architect. Palladio in Private follows his career, his rise from being the ordinary miller's son Pietro della Gondola to become the architect Andrea Palladio. Beltramini does not just explore Palladio's origins, his training as a stonemason, and his complex relationship with powerful clients and scholars, but also his private life: his jovial character, his life as a married man with five children, and not least his profound conviction that architecture can and must enrich life. The text is complemented by numerous illustrations. Guido Beltramini , born in 1961, has been director of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza since 1991. He has curated numerous exhibitions at venues including the Venice Biennale, the Royal Academy of Art, London, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.

A chronicle of an influential villa by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio that brings a sense of discovery to the Italian countryside and its larger national history. • “If a vacation in Italy this summer just isn’t going to make the cut, this book might be the next best thing.” —Chicago Tribune In 1552, in the countryside outside Venice, the great Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio built Villa Cornaro. In 1989, Sally and Carl Gable became its bemused new owners. Called by Town & Country one of the ten most influential buildings in the world, the villa is the centerpiece of the Gables’ enchanting journey into the life of a place that transformed their own. From the villa’s history and its architectural pleasures, to the lives of its former inhabitants, to the charms of the little town that surrounds it, this loving account delivers generosity, humor, and a sense of discovery. “Palladian Days is nothing short of wonderful–part adventure, mystery, history, diary, and even cookbook. The Gables’ lively account captures the excitement of their acquisition and restoration of one of the greatest houses in Italy. Beguiled by Palladio and the town of Piombino Dese, they trace the history of the Villa Cornaro and their absorption of Italian life. Bravo!” —Susan R. Stein, Gilder Curator and Vice President of Museum Programs, Monticello

"Any attempt to sum up Andrea Palladio's creative achievements is invariably distorted by the fact that some of the greatest projects of his mature years were never built. For the most part, these unfinished works were in Venice. They include the patriarchal Church of San Pietro di Castello, the reorganisation of the Rialto district at the commercial and financial heart of the city, a church that would have overlooked the Grand Canal and, lastly, the monumental complex of the monastery for the Lateran Canons, the Convento della Carità. Antonio Foscari has now restored the balance by charting the course of Andrea Palladio's remarkable life and prodigious oeuvre in a way that sheds new light on all his works while also recognising a number of previously unclassified drawings. The books culminates with an attempt, unprecedented in over four hundred years of Palladian studies, to reconstruct the project that Palladio, in the autumn of his life, held to be the supreme testimonial of his creativity: the rebuilding of the Doge's Palace in Venice."--P. [4] of cover.

Drawing on Palladio's original published legacy of approximately 40 designs, the authors attempt to reveal the rigorous geometric rules by which Palladio conceived these structures. Using a computer, they test each rule in every possible application.

This collection of an important architectural theorist's essays considers and compares designs by Palladio and Le Corbusier, discusses mannerism and modern architecture, architectural vocabulary in the 19th century, the architecture of Chicago, neoclassicism and modern architecture, and the architecture of utopia.