Villa Porto is an unfinished

patrician villa Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a social class of patrician families, whose members were initially the only people allowed to exercise many political fu ...

in Molina di

Malo Mal, which in Spanish means ''bad or evil'', may also refer to: Places *Malo, Italy, a town *Malo Island, formerly known as St. Bartholomew, Vanuatu * Malo (Solomon Islands), an island *Malo, Washington, Ferry County, Washington, United States * ...

Province of Vicenza The Province of Vicenza ( it, Provincia di Vicenza) is a province in the Veneto region in northern Italy. Its capital city is Vicenza. The province has an area of 2,722.53 km², and a total population of 865,082 (as of 2017). There are 1 ...

, northern Italy, designed 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 ...

in 1570.

History

The ten

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

shafts that dominate the great 15th century

farmyard A barnyard or farmyard is an enclosed or open yard adjoining a barn,Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009. Barn. n. and, typically, related farm buildings, including a farmhouse. Enclosed ...

of the Porto family at Molina mark the first stage of a grandiose project conceived by Palladio on behalf of Iseppo (Giuseppe) Porto: in fact, the patron’s name is inscribed on the

plinth A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...

s of the splendid stone column bases, next to the date 1572. The rich protagonist of one of Vicenza’s most important families, and brother-in-law of both Adriano and Marcantonio

Thiene Thiene () is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Vicenza, in northern Italy, located approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. __NOTOC__ The city has an active and lively industrial sector, composed mainly of small to medium-sized comp ...

(patrons of the homonymous palace by Palladio), Iseppo Porto already owned a grandiose city palace, which Palladio had designed him over twenty years earlier,

Palazzo Porto Palazzo Porto is a palace built by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in Contrà Porti, Vicenza, Italy. It is one of two palaces in the city designed by Palladio for members of the Porto family (the other being Palazzo Porto in Piazza ...

. Archival documents show that the enormous columns are not the fragments of a monumental

barchessa A barchessa is a rural service building, typical of the architecture of Venetian villas. The concept was created and popularized by architect Andrea Palladio. A barchessa contains the working portions of the estate, separately from the central b ...

, like that for the Villa Pisani at Bagnolo, but rather of the

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

of a true and proper country residence. The large

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

, a direct quotation from the

pronaos 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 ...

of the

Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone St ...

, would have reached an overall height of over thirteen metres. Lower

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 ...

es, on a quarter-circle plan and still visible in the 19th century, would have tied the manorial house to agricultural annexes to left and right. This edifice recalls two other projects by Palladio, the

Villa Mocenigo A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became sm ...

on the Brenta and the Villa Thiene at Cicogna, neither of which was ever executed though both are documented by various autograph sketches and were included in the ''

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 ...

''. In publishing Giuseppe Porto’s city palace in the ''Quattro libri'', Palladio enriched the original project with a courtyard of a

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

Composite order The Composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order.Henig, Martin (ed.), ''A Handbook of Roman Art'', p. 50, Phaidon, 1983, In many versions the composite o ...

extremely close to that of the villa at Molina. Giuseppe’s death in 1580 put an end to the building works, which were never completed.

References

External links

*https://www.palladiomuseum.org/veneto/opera/60
Villa Porto (Molina) in the CISA website
(source for the first revision of this article, with kind permission) {{DEFAULTSORT:Villa Porto (Molina Di Malo) Buildings and structures completed in 1570 Andrea Palladio buildings Unfinished buildings and structures Province of Vicenza

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 ...

1570 establishments in Italy

History

See also

References

External links