Palazzo Barbaran da Porto
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Palazzo Barbaran da Porto is a '' palazzo'' 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 ...
, Italy designed in 1569 and built between 1570 and 1575 by Italian Renaissance architect
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 ...
. Since 1994 the palace is part of the "
City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto is a World Heritage Site in Italy, which protects buildings by the architect Andrea Palladio. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1994. At first the site was called " ...
"
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 ...
by UNESCO. In the palace is located the Museo Palladio and the
Centro internazionale di studi di architettura Andrea Palladio Centro may refer to: Places Brazil * Centro, Santa Maria, a neighborhood in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil * Centro, Porto Alegre, a neighborhood of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil *Centro (Duque de Caxias), a neighborhood of Du ...
(CISA).


History

The sumptuous residence realised between 1570 and 1575 for the Vicentine noble Montano Barbarano is the only great city palace that Andrea Palladio succeeded in executing in its entirety. In his ''History of Vicenza'' of 1591, Iacopo Marzari records Montano Barbarano as a man "of belles lettres and most excellent musician". Various flutes figure in the 1592 inventory of the palace, confirming the existence of an intensive musical activity there. At least three different autograph projects survive, preserved in London, which document alternative hypotheses for the building's plan, all quite different from the actual one and testimony to a complex design process. Barbarano, in fact, requested Palladio to respect the existence of various houses belonging to the family and already existing on the area of the new palace. Moreover, once the project was finalised Barbarano acquired a further house adjoining the property, which resulted in the asymmetrical positioning of the entrance portal. In any case, the constraints imposed by the site and by a practical patron became the occasion for courageous and refined solutions: Palladio's intervention is magisterial, elaborating upon a sophisticated project for "restructuring" which blended the diverse pre-existing structures into a unified edifice. In 1998, after a twenty-year restoration, the Palace has been opened to the public. The exhibition activities began in March 1999.


Description

On the ground floor, a magnificent four-columned atrium welds together the two pre-existing building lots. In realising the scheme, Palladio was called upon to resolve two problems: one statical, how to support the floor of the great hall on the ''
piano nobile The ''piano nobile'' (Italian for "noble floor" or "noble level", also sometimes referred to by the corresponding French term, ''bel étage'') is the principal floor of a palazzo. This floor contains the main reception and bedrooms of the hou ...
''; the other compositional, how to restore a symmetrical appearance to interiors compromised by the oblique course of the perimeter walls from the pre-existing houses. Departing from the model of the wings of the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, Palladio divided the interior into three
aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...
s, placing centrally four Ionic columns which allowed the reduction of the span of the central cross-vaults, set against lateral
barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
s. He thus achieved a very statically efficient framework capable of bearing the floor of the hall above without any difficulty. The central columns were then tied to the perimeter walls by fragments of rectilinear
entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...
, which absorb the irregularities of the atrium plan: in this way he realised a sort of system of serliane, a stratagem conceptually similar to that of the Basilica Palladiana loggias. Palladio even adopted the unusual type of Ionic capital (derived from the Temple of Saturn in the
Forum Romanum The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum ( it, Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient ...
) because it permitted him to mask the slight but significant rotations necessary to align the columns and engaged columns. Image:Palazzo Barbaran da Porto pianta.jpg, Floor plan and relief of an Ionic capital (drawing by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1776) Image:Palazzo Barbaran da Porto_sezione.jpg, Cross section (Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, 1776)


Decoration

To decorate the palace, in several campaigns Montano employed some of the greatest artists of his time: Giovanni Battista Zelotti (who had already intervened in the interiors of Palladio's Villa Emo at Fanzolo),
Anselmo Canera Anselmo Canera, or Canneri (active 1522–1584), was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, born and mainly active in Verona. He is noted for his frescoes and his collaborations with other Italian Renaissance artists such as Bernardino India ...
and
Andrea Vicentino Andrea Vicentino (c. 1542 – 1617) was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance or Mannerist period. He was a pupil of the painter Giovanni Battista Maganza. Born in Vicenza, he was also known as ''Andrea Michieli'' or ''Michelli''. He moved ...
; the
stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
es were entrusted to Lorenzo Rubini (who contemporaneously executed the external decorations of the Loggia del Capitanio) and, after his death in 1574, to his son Agostino. The net result was a sumptuous palace capable of rivalling the residences of the Thiene, the
Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
and of the
Valmarana The Valmarana family is an aristocratic family in Vicenza, one branch of which also held Venetian patrician status. Its motto was "Plus Ultra" (Further). They were named after the village of Valmarana (now part of Altavilla Vicentina) in the ...
, a palace which permitted its patron to represent himself to the city as a ranking member of the Vicentine cultural élite.


Gallery

Image:PalazzoBarbaranDaPorto20070707-18.jpg, Decoration of the interiors File:Palazzo Barbaran Da Porto facc1.jpg, Facade detail Image:PalazzoBarbaranDaPorto20070707-12.jpg, Loggia in the courtyard Image:PalazzoBarbaranDaPorto20070707-14.jpg, Details with Ionic capitals


References


External links


Palazzo Barbaran da Porto in the CISA website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palazzo Barbaran Da Porto Houses completed in 1575 Barbaran Da Porto Renaissance architecture in Vicenza World Heritage Sites in Italy Andrea Palladio buildings