Villa La Rotonda

Lore & Background

In 1565 Paolo Almerico, a clerk and nobleman, on his retirement from the Vatican (as referendario apostolico of Pope Pius IV and afterwards Pius V), returned to his home town of Vicenza in the Venetian countryside and built a country house. The site selected was a hilltop just outside the city of Vicenza. Unlike some other Palladian villas of the Veneto, the building was not designed from the start to accommodate a working farm. Palladio classed the building as a 'palazzo' rather than a villa. The building wasn't meant to actually be inhabited even though it is described as a habitable place. Villa Capra may have inspired a thousand subsequent buildings, but the villa was itself inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. It was also inspired by Christian and pagan architecture in the columns of the four pronai, the building is described to be a villa temple.

Reader's Guide

Villa La Rotonda is one of Palladio's best-known legacies to the architectural world. The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos. The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome. To describe the villa, as a whole, as a rotunda is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross. The Hall is located in the center and tends to catch the light from the top. All rooms were proportioned with mathematical precision according to Palladio's rules of architecture which he published in I quattro libri dell'architettura. Building began in 1567. Neither Palladio nor the owner, Paolo Almerico, were to see the completion of the villa. The owner Almerico passed away in 1589 where the Villa was then transferred over to his illegitimate son Virginio. Palladio died in 1580 and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi, was employed by the new owners to oversee the completion. One of the major changes he made to the original plan was to modify the two-storey central hall. Palladio had intended it to be covered by a high semi-circular dome but Scamozzi designed a lower dome with an oculus (intended to be open to the sky) inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The dome was ultimately completed with a cupola. In 1994 UNESCO designated the building as part of a World Heritage Site. The interior is open to the public Friday through Sunday, and the grounds are open every day.

Did You Know?

• The name Capra derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after they acquired it in 1592.
• The villa was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, as well as by Christian and pagan architecture in the columns of the four pronai.
• Palladio died in 1580, and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi, was employed by the new owners to oversee completion; he designed a lower dome with an oculus inspired by the Pantheon.
• The design was rotated 45 degrees from each cardinal point of the compass so that each room would have some sun.
• In 1979 the American film director Joseph Losey filmed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni in Villa La Rotonda and the Veneto region of Italy.