Andrea Palladio

Andrea Palladio and his wider influence: Britain and the world

Dr Laura Fernandez-Gonzalez

ANDREA PALLADIO (1508 – 1580)

‘All over the western world, hundreds of thousands of houses, churches and public buildings with symmetrical fronts and applied half-columns topped by a pediment descend from the designs of Andrea Palladio. He is the most imitated architect in history, and his influence on the development of English and American architecture probably has been greater than that of all other Renaissance architects combined.’ James S. Ackerman, Palladio

The buildings of Palladio are located in Northern Italy: in Venice, in Vicenza (Palladio’s home town), and in the Veneto, the region of Italy west of Venice and surrounding Vicenza.

PALLADIO’S BUILDINGS: • Churches Secular • Public Buildings • Palaces • Villas

View across the Guidecca Canal from St Mark’s Square, Venice, showing San Giorgio Maggiore (centre)

View across the Guidecca Canal from St Mark’s Square, Venice, showing Il Redentore (on the left)

San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1565 Note Palladio’s solution to the problem of placing the ‘temple front’ onto a building with a basilica-type cross-section

San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1565 Note how the façade is linked to the interior

Il Redentore, Venice, 1576-77

San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1565

Il Redentore, Venice, 1576-77 As at San Giorgio Maggiore, the façade is linked to the interior

Basilica, Vicenza, 1549 Palladio added a classical facade to an existing medieval building.

Basilica, Vicenza, 1549 Note the manner in which each bay is sub-divided into a central arch flanked by two lintelled portions. This is known as the ‘Palladian motif’; it is also known as the ‘Serlian motif’. Usually the motif is presented as a single element in a building. Here, it is used to disguise differences in the widths of the bays, caused by irregularities in the original medieval plan.

Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, 1579-80 Palladio’s theatre for the Accademia Olimpico, based on a Vitruvian original. Note the false perspective in the stage, which was added after Palladio’s time.

Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza, 1550 An example of Palladio’s ‘town’ architecture

Palazzo Barbarano, Vicenza, 1570 Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza, 1545-50

Villa Saraceno, Finale, 1560

Examples of Palladio’s ‘country’ architecture – the villas.

Villa Barbaro, Maser, mid-late 1550s

Palladio wrote several books. The most influential was a treatise on architecture entitled: I Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura This was first published in Venice in 1570, and subsequently re-published in many editions and translated into several languages. Frontispiece (left) and plate illustrating the Villa Badoer (below)

THE VILLAS OF PALLADIO

Villa Chiericati, Vancimuglio, 1554-57

The villa-type building was new in Palladio’s time. The need for it was due to a unique set of circumstances: • a change had occurred in the economy of

the Veneto. Hitherto, this had depended largely on trade routes from the East, through ports such as Venice, and ending in Northern Europe.

• In the C16 this trade was in decline due to

a shift in trade patterns caused by the opening of a new route to the East via the Cape of Good Hope and to new sources of wealth made available by the ‘discovery’ of the Americas.

• land had become a good investment due

to: - increase in population which raised the cost of food - agricultural improvement which increased crop yields.


Wealthy people in the Veneto therefore began to invest in land and wished to live on it. Hitherto this had only been possible in fortresses, due to general lawlessness. By Palladio’s time it had become safer for wealthy people to live in the countryside in buildings which were not castles. This created a need for a new type of building – a house which was suitable as the principal residence of a person of wealth and culture and which was not a fortress. Palladio’s villas were a response to this need


While no two villas are identical, they almost all share certain characteristics: • three storeys: – piano nobile – attic –

basement • temple front associated with main

entrance • tri-partite subdivision of the principal

façade

The total number of villas designed by Palladio is disputed by scholars. It was most probably 24. There were three types of villa: • retreat (only one of this type) • town residence (three of this type) • estate residence (the majority of

this type) It was the needs of the third type which determined the plans and general layouts of all of the villas but examples of the first two are given briefly here for completeness.

Retreat type - Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza, 1550-51

Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza, 1550-51

Although perhaps his most famous villa it is not typical. It is a country retreat rather than a building at the centre of an estate

Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza, 1550-51

Town residence type - Villa Cornaro, Piombino Dese, 1560-65 (front and rear). This villa is also atypical because there are two principal floors. There were only three of these and they were located in towns rather than in estates

Villa Saraceno, Finale, 1560

Villa Emo, Fanzolo, late 1550s

Most villas were associated with the working of land and ranged from buildings which we little more than farmhouses (eg Saraceno) to buildings which were at the centre of large landed estates (eg. Emo).

Villa Badoer, Fratta Polesine, 1554-63 Front (above) Plate from Quattro Libri (below)

Villa Badoer, Fratta Polesine, 1554-63 Front and section on principal axis Three types of accommodation were required within the house: • living accommodation for the owner –

always confined to the piano nobile • service accommodation (kitchen, etc.) – in

the basement • storage for the produce of the land – attic

Typical interior on piano nobile Sala (principal room)

of the Villa Emo, Fanzolo, late 1550s

Typical attic and basement of Palladian villa

Villa Badoer, Fratta Polesine, 1554-63

THE INFLUENCE OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY ON THE PLANNING OF THE VILLA

‘Since architecture, like all the other arts, imitates nature, nothing [in it] can satisfy that is foreign from what is found in nature.’

Quattro Libri, I, XX.

• The fundamental idea influencing the general arrangement of Palladio’s

buildings is that the Universe is ordered (not chaotic) and that buildings (as well as all other artefacts) should conform to the principles of the Universal Order.

• It was believed that these principles could be discovered by studying Nature –

hence the great interest, at the time of the Italian Renaissance, in the study of cosmology and the physical and natural sciences.

THE INFLUENCE OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY ON THE PLANNING OF THE VILLA

‘Since architecture, like all the other arts, imitates nature, nothing [in it] can satisfy that is foreign from what is found in nature.’

Quattro Libri, I, XX.

The aspects of Universal Order which are most prominent in Palladio’s buildings are:

• bi-axial symmetry in plan and elevation

• hierarchical organisation

• the use of proportional systems to determine the shapes and sizes of

rooms

Bi-axial symmetry in the plan and in the elevation

Villa Emo, Fanzolo, late 1550s Front elevation and plate from Quattro Libri

Villa Emo, Fanzolo, late 1550s Front elevation and plate from Quattro Libri Note hierarchical organisation of the plan with the house and the largest room within the house located on the axis of symmetry.

Hierarchical organisation

Hierarchical organisation

Villa Badoer, Fratta Polesine, 1554-63 The use of hierarchy: the Ionic Order is used for the entrance loggia, and Roman Doric, which is a lower order, for the ‘rustic’ part of the building.

Proportional systems (originating in Greek Antiquity and mostly devised from the study of musical harmony):

• Plan shapes of rooms: Simple whole-number ratios • Heights of rooms: The mean proportionals • Dimensions (size) of rooms: Harmonic numbers

Plan shapes of rooms: Simple whole-number ratios Plans of Palladian villas (Wittkower) Note:

• bi-axial symmetry;

• hierarchical arrangement with the largest room on the axis; and

• the use of simple whole-number

ratios in the proportioning of each room. Plan shapes of rooms: Simple whole-number ratios

Proportional systems Note: • simple whole-number ratios used

in the proportioning of the room plans;

and • actual dimensions taken from the

Harmonic Numbers Series.

Villa Foscari, Malcontenta, before 1560

Proportional systems It is important to note that by using proportional systems Palladio did not consider that he was creating ‘frozen music’. He was simply attempting to incorporate into the buildings the principles of the Universal Order which happened to manifest themselves in musical harmony.

Villa Foscari, Malcontenta, before 1560

THE VILLAS OF PALLADIO AS MICROCOSMS Through incorporation of the principles of Universal Order, the buildings became microcosms (models of the Universe). For Palladio, no artefact which did not conform to this could be satisfying aesthetically or intellectually.

PALLADIO’S Wider Influence

Summary:

- Inigo Jones and the introduction of Palladian themes in architectural design in England.

- English Baroque and the Classical Language in Western Architecture.

- British Palladianism.

Inigo Jones (1573-1652)

Inigo Jones’ notes on his copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri

Inigo Jones, Banqueting House, Whitehall (1619-22)

Jones, Banqueting House, interior and plan Double-cube, Palladian proportions and design

Introduction to Sir Christopher

Wren’s work

S. Serlio. Theatre of Marcellus

with Vitruvian Construction

Overlay. (from L’Architettura,

Libro Quatro, 1540).

Wren, Sheldonian Theatre, 1664-68,

Oxford. Floor plan.

Wren, Sheldonian

Theatre, 1664-68,

Oxford

Wren, Flamstead House (Royal

Observatory), 1675

'Mathematical demonstrations

being built upon the impregnable

foundations of Geometry and

Arithmetick, are the only truths

‘void of all uncertainty...’

Wren, Inaugural lecture Gresham

College Professor of Astronomy,

London, 1657

1660 founding member of Royal

Society

1661 Savilian Professor of

Astronomy, Oxford

1681 President of the Royal Society

Wren, Greenwich Hospital, 1694>

I. Jones, Queen’s House, 1616>

Libéral Bruant & Jules

Hardouin Mansart,

Les Invalides, 1670> Paris

Wren, Greenwich Hospital, 1694> I. Jones, Queen’s House, 1616>

Views of London, showing the city before the Great Fire and

extent of damage, 1666

Wren’s Plan for London, 1666

St Bride’s, Fleet Street St Mary-le-Bow St Clement, Eastcheap

St Paul’s, West Front

St Paul’s Great Model, 1673

Floor plan

Section

Bernini, Drawing for East Front, Louvre, 1664

‘I would have given my skin for it, but the old reserved Italian gave me but a few minutes

view ... I had only time to copy it in my fancy and memory...’ Wren, 1665-6

Wren, The Great Model 1673-74 in the Cathedral’s Throphy Room.

The Warrant design (authorised 14 May 1675). South elevation, drawn by Wren (© All Souls College, Oxford, G.74)

The Warrant design (1675).

Plan, drawn by Wren Floor Plan York’s Minster

BRITISH PALLADIANISM

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Earl of

Shaftesbury (1671- 1713)

Author of

The Moralists 1709

Characteristicks 1711

A Letter Concerning Design 1712

Simon Gribelin (engraver) after

John Costerman

Portrait of Lord Shaftesbury in classical garb

c.1702

SHAFTESBURY ON TASTE

_______________________________________________

“.. Nothing which is found charming or delightful in the polite World,

nothing which is adopted as pleasure, or entertainment, of

whatever kind, can any way be accounted for, supported, or

establish ’d, without the pre-establishment or supposition of a

certain TASTE.”

“ .. The TASTE of Beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just, and

amiable, perfects the character of the GENTLEMAN, and the

PHILOSOPHER.”

Characteristicks 3

“As for ARCHITECTURE, ‘tis no wonder if so many noble designs of this kind

have miscarry’d amongst us; since the Genius of our nation has hitherto been

so little turned this way, that through several reigns we have patiently seen

the noblest publick building perish … under the hand of one single Court-

Architect..”

Lord Shaftesbury, Letter concerning Art,1712

Vanbrugh & Hawksmoor, Blenheim Palace, 1704-1720, Entrance front

Vanbrugh & Hawksmoor, Blenheim Palace, 1704-1720, Plan

Colen Campbell, Design for a house for Lord Percival VBI, 96-97, 1715

Andrea Palladio, Villa Cornaro, 1552

Colen Campbell

St Paul’s Cathedral from

Vitruvius Britannicus I

Plate 4

1715

Colen Campbell

St Peter’s from


Plate 6

1715

Colen Campbell

Design for a church for

Lincoln’s Inn Fields

from


Plate 8

1715

Colen Campbell, Burlington House, London, c1717

Jonesian motifs:

• rusticated basement, balustraded flat roof, Venetian windows

Colen Campbell Wanstead 1, 1714-20



Colen Campbell, Wanstead House, 1715, Vit Brit I,

ENGLISH

PALLADIANISM &

ENGLISH BAROQUE

Compare Campbell’s

Wanstead 2 with

Vanbrugh’s Castle

Howard

ENGLISH

PALLADIANISM &

ENGLISH BAROQUE

Compare Campbell’s

Wanstead 3 with

Vanbrugh’s Blenheim

Palace

Colen Campbell, Wanstead House, 1715, Vit Brit I,

View of Wanstead House, 1771

William Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1734-65

William Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1734-65. Entrance front

William Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1734-65

Daniele Barbaro

Plan of Roman House

From translation of

Vitruvius

Ten Books of Architecture

1556

William Kent,

Holkham Hall

Norfolk,

1734-65

William Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1734-65, service wing

Henry Flitcroft, Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, 1735-69

David Hamilton, Hamilton Palace, North front, 1820

Colen Cambell

Wanstead and

derivative house

plans

Colen Campbell, Rotunda Project, c.1717/18

Andrea Palladio, Villa Almerico Capra - La Rotonda - Vicenza, 1556

Colen Campbell, Mereworth, Kent, 1722-25

Colen Campbell

Mereworth from Vitruvius Britannicus

1725

Giacomo Leoni

Villa Rotunda from his translation of

Quattro Libri

Volume 2

c.1717

Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, 1723-29

Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, 1723-29

Lord Burlington

Chiswick House

from 1725

Portico

Lord Burlington Assembly Rooms, York, 1730

Palladio, Egyptian Halls, from il Quattro Libri

BIBLIOGRAPHY Palladio: Ackerman, J., Palladio, London, 1966 Tavernor, R., Palladio and Palladianism, London,1991 Wittkower, R., Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, London, 1962 Inigo Jones: Anderson, C. (2007) Inigo Jones and the classical tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge UP Summerson, J. (1966) Inigo Jones, Harmondsworth: Penguin Worsley, G. (2007) Inigo Jones and the European classicist tradition, New Haven and London: Yale UP English Baroque: Downes, K., The Architecture of Wren, Granada 1982

Downes, K., English Baroque Architecture (London,1966)

Hart, V., St Paul’s Cathedral: Christopher Wren, Phaidon Press, 1995

Summerson, J., Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830, Pelican 1953>

Whinney, M., Wren, Thames & Hudson, 1998. British Palladianism: Barnard & Clark (eds.), Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life (London, 1995) Harris, John, The Palladians (London, 1981) Stutchbury, Howard, The architecture of Colen Campbell (Manchester, 1967) Summerson, John, Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830, 9th ed. (1993) Tavernor, Robert, Palladio and Palladianism (London, 1991) Wittkower, R., Palladio and English Palladianism (London, 1977) Worsley, Giles, Classical Architecture in Britain: the Heroic Age (New Haven, c1995)