The Basilica Palladiana is a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

building in the central Piazza dei Signori in

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a th ...

, north-eastern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The most notable feature of the edifice is the

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

, which shows one of the first examples of what have come to be known as the Palladian window, designed by a young

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of th ...

, whose work in architecture was to have a significant effect on the field during the Renaissance and later periods. Since 1994, the Basilica Palladiana, together with other Palladian buildings in and around Vicenza, has been part of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

" City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".

History

The building was originally constructed in the 15th century and was known as the Palazzo della Ragione, having been designed by Domenico da Venezia to include two pre-existing public palazzi. The building, which was in the

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, served as the seat of government and also housed a number of shops on the ground floor. The -tall Torre Bissara precedes this structure, as it is known from as early as 1172; however, its height was increased on this occasion, and its pinnacle was finished in 1444. It has five bells in the chord of E. The 15th-century edifice had an upside-down cover, partly supported by large

archivolt An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental moulding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental mouldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the ...

s, inspired by the one built in 1306 for the eponymous building of

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

. The Gothic façade was in

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

and ''gialletto'' marble of Verona, and is still visible behind the Palladio addition. A double order of columns was built by Tommaso Formenton in 1481–1494 to surround the palace. However, two years after its completion, the south-western corner collapsed. In the following decades, the Vicentine government called in architects such as Antonio Rizzo,

Giorgio Spavento Giorgio Spavento (died 17 April 1509) was an Italian Renaissance architect and engineer, active in Venice. Probably native to the area of Lake Como, he is first recorded in 1486 when he was appointed as ''proto'' (consultant architect and build ...

, Antonio Scarpagnino, Jacopo Sansovino,

Sebastiano Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential trea ...

Michele Sanmicheli Michele Sanmicheli (also spelled ''Sanmmicheli'', ''Sanmichele'' or ''Sammichele'') (1484–1559), was a Venetian architect and urban planner of Mannerist-style, among the greatest of his era. A tireless worker, he was in charge of designing bui ...

and

Giulio Romano Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...

to propose a reconstruction plan. In 1546, the Council of One Hundred chose a 40-year-old local architect,

, to reconstruct the building starting from April 1549. Palladio added a new outer shell of marble classical forms, a loggia and a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

that now obscure the original Gothic architecture. He also dubbed the building a "basilica", after the ancient Roman civil structures of that name. The Basilica was an expensive project (some 60,000

ducats The ducat () coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages from the 13th to 19th centuries. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained ...

once finished) and took a long time to complete. Palladio received for the work an income of five ducats a month for most of his life. In 1614—thirty years after his death—the building was completed, with the finishing of the main façade on Piazza delle Erbe.

Description

Drawings by Palladio, from his original proposal of 1546 to the final construction, have been preserved. His solution, which also encompasses the necessary measure to adapt the addition to the pre-existing structure, is based on the so-called

serliana A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian ar ...

: this is a repetitive structure in which

round arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

es are flanked by rectangular openings; the latter were of different size, in order to match the variable size of the internal bay. In the angular arcades, the

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

openings become very narrow. The serliana had been already used in the Veneto some years before by Jacopo Sansovino for his

Biblioteca Marciana The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark ( it, italic=no, Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositori ...

(1537), as well as in the reconstruction of the

Polirone Abbey The Abbey of San Benedetto in Polirone is a large complex of Benedictine order monastic buildings, including a church and cloisters, located in town of San Benedetto Po, Province of Mantua, Region of Lombardy, Italy. The complex, now belonging to ...

by Giulio Romano (1540). The loggias in the lower floor were in the

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of c ...

; the associated entablature has a frieze which alternates

metope In classical architecture, a metope (μετόπη) is a rectangular architectural element that fills the space between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, which is a decorative band of alternating triglyphs and metopes above the architrave of a bu ...

(decorated by dishes and

bucrania Bucranium (plural ''bucrania''; Latin, from Greek ''βουκράνιον'', referring to the skull of an ox) was a form of carved decoration commonly used in Classical architecture. The name is generally considered to originate with the practic ...

) and

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s. The upper-floor loggias, by contrast, are in the Ionic order, with a continuous frieze entablature. The

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

has statues by Giovanni Battista Albanese, Grazioli and Lorenzo Rubini. The clocktower has five bells in the chord of E major.

Conservation

Since 1994 the Basilica has been protected as part of the

also including the other Palladian buildings of Vicenza. The building now often hosts exhibitions in its large hall used for civic events.

Restoration

A large restoration project started in 2007. In 2014 it won the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award.

Gallery

Torre Bissara e Basilica Palladiana Vicenza.jpg, Clocktower ('' Torre Bissara'') and loggia of the Basilica Palladiana Palladio Palazzo della Ragione upper.jpg, Upper level loggia Basilica Palladiana 1.jpg, Ground floor Basilica di Vicenza-1.jpg, A night view of the ''Basilica Palladiana'' Basilica Palladiana, view from monte berico.JPG, Basilica Palladiana, view from ''Monte Berico'' Palazzo della Ragione.gif, Detail of the upper loggia with two

(drawn from

I quattro libri dell'architettura ''I quattro libri dell'architettura'' (''The Four Books of Architecture'') is a treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), written in Italian. It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated wi ...

)

References

External links

*
Logge of the Palazzo della Ragione - Vicenza - (1546-1549)
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1172 Towers completed in the 12th century Buildings and structures completed in 1494 Houses completed in 1614 Palladiana Palaces in Vicenza Andrea Palladio buildings Renaissance architecture in Vicenza 1614 establishments in Italy Loggias in Italy