Vicenza: Palladio, Palazzi, and Pasta

Hello again, Blogonauts!

Metropolis has Superman. Gotham City has Batman. And Vicenza has Andrea Palladio.

Few cities come to mind that are so closely tied to the legacy left by a single individual. Yet in Vicenza, it is impossible to escape Palladio's architecture, lore, or even his name.

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) helped to shape late Renaissance Italian architecture by restoring and expanding Greek and Roman building aesthetics and principles, relying on clean lines and balance. It's likely that, without realizing it, you already know his name. "Palladian windows" (those topped with a semi-circular arch found on loads of palaces, government buildings, and American McMansions) are named after him. Indeed, the overall designs of the White House in Washington, DC, and Jefferson's Monticello largely comply with Palladian architecture.

And visiting Vicenza offers a real-life opportunity to thumb through this fellow's portfolio.

Let's start with the Piazza dei Signori. The piazza itself is a historical landmark. It has served as the center of this city since it contained the ancient Roman forum. At one end stand two tall columns, one topped with a winged lion (the symbol of Venice) and the other with a statue of Christ the Redeemer (erected by those who survived the plague).

 

And comprising almost one long side of the piazza sits the Palladian Basilica.

Palladio built the basilica to house government offices and meeting spaces, much like Padova's Palazzo della Ragione. But here, rather than frescoes, Palladio's building itself is the art on display. The complex columns and arches cover two levels, and the roof line is decorated with sculptures depicting ancient heroes and deities. Building and maintaining the basilica gave Palladio an annual salary for decades. And luckily, even today it's possible to climb to the top.

A special exhibit was showing in part of the upper floor.

The Marian shrine on the hilltop across the river.

 One block north of the Piazza dei Signori is Vicenza's main street, the pedestrianized Corso Palladio. The avenue is well named because the buildings flanking it are Palladio's design.

Palladio understood that the ancient practice of building with stone would be prohibitively expensive. Instead for the buildings along Corso Palladio, and many of his buildings, he fabricated columns from of wood. He masterfully fit together pie-shaped wedges to form a disk, stacked these disks into a column, and then coated the column with a uniform coat of plaster. To better mimic stone columns, lines were emblazoned in the plaster to make them appear like a tower of stacked marble.

At the eastern end of Corso Palladio lies Palladio's final project: the Olympic Theater. Although he did not live to see it, he left detailed drawings for the builders. 

 

Again, the proscenium is embellished with columns, Palladian arches, and niches for statues of ancient heroes. Through the proscenium openings are trompe l'oeil optical illusion...streets that appear to stretch more than a mile into the distance. In reality, they extend only to the rear of the stage, about 30 feet.

The Olympic Theater is still used on occasion, but only in the spring and fall because, in order to preserve the aging structure, the room is neither heated nor air conditioned. But visitors like me get to sit on the same wooden bleachers that were installed in the 16th century.

So more about my experience of Vicenza. The local terrain is fairly flat, but the foothills of the Dolomite mountains are close by. On the pinnacle of Monte Berico, across the Retrone River, is a Marian shrine that I had spied from atop the Palladian Basilica. It was a goal hard to resist. The hike to the top was only about a mile, and the views of Vicenza from there were certainly worth the exercise.

Pilgrim walkway to the Marian shrine

The Marian Shrine atop Monte Berico

 

The view from Monte Berico. The Palladian Basilica appears as the green mound, center right of the photo.

 

Be aware I've given only a bare-bones, really inadequate description of Palladio and of Vicenza. But we have to move on! We'll close today with a photo from my Saturday dinner: Spaghettoni with grilled tuna. Yum!

 

Next up: Verona!

Blog to you later!