Andrea Palladio

Introduction
Early life and works
Visits to Rome and work in Vicenza
Venetian period
Legacy

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Villa Rotonda near Vicenza, Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio, features a symmetrical structure with classical columns, a central dome, and statues atop the roof.

Andrea Palladio: interior of San Giorgio Maggiore

Ornate stage of Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, featuring classical architectural details, statues in niches, and a central archway opening onto a perspective street set.

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, by Andrea Palladio, 1566–1610.

Nave toward the apse, S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, designed by Andrea Palladio, 1566; an example of Renaissance space.

Teatro Olimpico, designed by Andrea Palladio and completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, 1585, Vicenza, Italy.

Villa Rotonda, near Vicenza, Italy, by Andrea Palladio, 1550–51

At a Glance

Andrea Palladio summary

Quizzes

Close-up of a palette held by a man. Mixing paint, painting, color mixing.

Artists, Painters, & Architects

Hagia Sophia. Istanbul, Turkey. Constantinople. Church of the Holy Wisdom. Church of the Divine Wisdom. Mosque.

Architecture: The Built World

Related Questions

How did Andrea Palladio begin working as a mason and sculptor’s apprentice?
How did Andrea Palladio receive the name Palladio?
How did Andrea Palladio redesign the Basilica in Vicenza?
How did Andrea Palladio solve the problem of designing a church facade with a high nave and lower aisles?
How did Andrea Palladio use courtyards to create symmetry in his villa complexes?
How did Andrea Palladio’s book help spread classical architectural details?
How did Andrea Palladio’s trips to Rome influence his palace designs?
How did Andrea Palladio’s villas serve both farming estates and summer residences?
How did Chiswick House reinterpret Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda?
How did Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus encourage English Palladianism?
How did Gian Giorgio Trissino become Andrea Palladio’s mentor?
How did Humanist education influence Andrea Palladio’s architectural ideas?
How did Inigo Jones introduce Palladian architecture to England?
How did Palladianism spread from Italy to England and Ireland?
How did Thomas Jefferson help spread Palladianism in America?
How did Vincenzo Scamozzi’s completed work differ from Andrea Palladio’s original designs?
How did Vitruvius influence Andrea Palladio’s designs?
How did the Battle of Lepanto affect the decoration of the Loggia del Capitanio?
How did the Palazzo Chiericati develop Andrea Palladio’s ideas about a Roman forum?
How did the Villa Godi resemble the Villa Trissino at Cricoli?
How does the interior of San Giorgio Maggiore separate the altar from the monastic choir?
How is Il Redentore in Venice arranged as a Latin-cross church?
How many porticoes does the Villa Rotonda have?
How was Palladianism different from Neoclassicism?
How was the Palazzo Iseppo Porto designed to resemble an ancient Roman house?
How were musical intervals connected to proportion in Andrea Palladio’s designs?
What are the three parts of a Palladian window?
What design did Andrea Palladio create for the chapel at Maser late in his life?
What makes the Villa Rotonda near Vicenza symmetrical?
What subjects are covered in the four books of I quattro libri dell’architettura?
What was Andrea Palladio’s first church facade design in Venice?
What was Andrea Palladio’s first major public commission in Vicenza?
What was the Accademia Olimpica and why did it commission the Teatro Olimpico?
When and where was Andrea Palladio born?
When did Andrea Palladio publish I quattro libri dell’architettura?
When was Il Redentore built and why is a temporary bridge made to it each July?
When was San Giorgio Maggiore designed and when was it completed?
Which English buildings designed by Inigo Jones show Palladian influence?
Which Mannerist features appear in Andrea Palladio’s Palazzo Valmarana?
Which ancient Roman buildings did Andrea Palladio study and measure in Rome?
Which ancient Roman writer did Andrea Palladio describe as his master and guide?
Which architect completed San Giorgio Maggiore after Andrea Palladio died?
Which architects influenced Andrea Palladio early in his career?
Which architectural features make the Villa Barbaro at Maser unusual?
Which features of the Basilica in Vicenza came from Sebastiano Serlio and Jacopo Sansovino?
Who commissioned Andrea Palladio’s Villa Godi?
Who completed Andrea Palladio’s unfinished buildings after his death?
Who painted the surviving fresco interiors of the Villa Barbaro at Maser?
Why did Andrea Palladio become the leading architect of the Veneto after 1570?
Why did Andrea Palladio use ancient temple fronts on villa facades?
Why did English Whigs support a revival of Palladian architecture during the Georgian period?
Why did I quattro libri dell’architettura become so influential in Western architecture?
Why did the Basilica in Vicenza need a two-story arcade?
Why was only part of the Loggia del Capitanio in Vicenza completed?
Why was the Villa Rotonda built on a hilltop near Vicenza?
Why were Andrea Palladio’s villas important to wealthy landowners in the Veneto?
Why is Filippo Brunelleschi so famous?
What is Filippo Brunelleschi known for?
How did Antoni Gaudí die?
Is Antoni Gaudí on the path to sainthood?
What is Antoni Gaudí famous for?
How was Antoni Gaudí educated?
What was Antoni Gaudí’s family like?
Why is Antoni Gaudí so famous?
What was one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s greatest works?
Why is Le Corbusier important?

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External Websites

Art Encyclopedia - Biography of Andrea Palladio
Royal Museums Greenwich - Biography of Andrea Palladio
Web Gallery of Art - Biography of Andrea Palladio

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Andrea Palladio - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Andrea Palladio

Italian architect

Also known as: Andrea di Pietro della Gondola

Written by

Margaret Ann Richardson

Curator, Sir John Soane's Museum, London.

Margaret Ann Richardson

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

Andrea Palladio (born Nov. 30, 1508, Padua, Republic of Venice [Italy]—died August 1580, Vicenza) was an Italian architect, regarded as the greatest architect of 16th-century northern Italy. His designs for palaces (palazzi) and villas, notably the Villa Rotonda (1550–51) near Vicenza, and his treatise I quattro libri dell’architettura (1570; The Four Books of Architecture) made him one of the most influential figures in Western architecture. Palladio was born in the northern Italian region of the...

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