Villa Thiene is a 16th-century

villa 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 s ...

at Quinto Vicentino in the

province of Vicenza The Province of Vicenza ( it, Provincia di Vicenza) is a Provinces of Italy, 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 o ...

. The building as it stands today is the work of several architects one of whom was

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 ...

. Like several other projects on which Palladio worked, it was commissioned by two brothers, in this case Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene. Since 1996, the villa has been conserved as part of a

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 ...

, the " City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto". The World Heritage Site also includes the

Palazzo Thiene Palazzo Thiene is a 15th-16th-century palace in Vicenza, northern Italy, designed for Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene, probably by Giulio Romano, in 1542,Andrew Hopkins, 2002. ''Italian Architecture from Michelangelo to Borromini''; p. 21. and revi ...

in the city of

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 thr ...

, which belonged to same Thiene brothers.

History

Palladio was involved with Villa Thiene in the 1540s, making it one of his earlier works. He appears to have adapted a design by

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 ...

. The extent of Romano's involvement in the project is not clear, in any case he died in Mantua in 1546 while the villa was still under construction. One of the Thiene brothers, Adriano Thiene, had to flee Vicenza in 1547 and building work appears to have been put on hold at that time.

Architecture

A version of the villa is illustrated and discussed in ''

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 ...

'' of 1570. As with a number of the villas described in Palladio's treatise, there are differences between what was published and what was actually built. Palladio's plan indicates that the present building was not intended for the mansion itself, but for one of the agricultural wings. However, there are sixteenth-century frescoes in the building by

Giovanni de Mio Giovanni de Mio or Demio, also called ''il Fratino'' or ''Fratina'' or ''l'Indemio'', (after 1510 in Schio – c. 1570) was an Italian painter and mosaicist of the Renaissance. Biography He was said to have been a pupil of Giovanni Battista ...

, suggesting that it was decided at an early state that the building would not be purely utilitarian. The plan shows two courtyards which were never completed. Courtyards are rather unusual among Palladio's villas, but the architect also proposed courtyards for Villa Serego, another incomplete villa, where one of the courtyards was partially constructed. The front and rear facades have been modified since the sixteenth century: the front facade is probably the closer to Palladio's intentions, although the brickword would originally have been rendered. The many holes were apparently done during wartime, to extract metal used within the villa's construction. The garden facade of Villa Thiene has been attributed to eighteenth-century architect

Francesco Muttoni Francesco Muttoni (January 22, 1669 – February 21, 1747) was an Italian architect, engineer, and architectural writer, mainly active near Vicenza, Italy. Biography He was born in Lacima, near Porlezza, on Lake Lugano __NOTOC__ Lake Lugano ( i ...

. Both the thermal window in the concluding gable and portals in the centre part are displeasing. These elements cannot be reconciled with Palladio's formal idiom.Wundram, Manfred, "Andrea Palladio 1508-1580, Architect between the Renaissance and Baroque"

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, ...

, Köln 1993 p.40

References

{{Authority control Andrea Palladio buildings

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 ...

Palladian villas of Veneto

History

Architecture

See also

References