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How did Andrea Palladio begin working as a mason and sculptor’s apprentice?
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Andrea Palladio
Villa Rotonda, near Vicenza, Italy, by Andrea Palladio, 1550–51.
Andrea Palladio began his career in the northern Italian region of the Veneto, where he was initially apprenticed to a sculptor in Padua as a youth. At the age of 16, he moved to nearby Vicenza and enrolled in the guild of the bricklayers and stonemasons.1
Following his enrollment, he worked as a mason in various workshops that specialized in monuments and decorative sculpture, adopting the style of the Mannerist architect Michele Sanmicheli. While working as a mason on the reconstruction of the Villa Trissino in the 1530s, his talents were recognized by the humanist scholar Count Gian Giorgio Trissino, who subsequently provided him with a classical education that helped transition his career from masonry to architecture.1