Page 52

TRAVEL/TOURS ADVERTORIAL52 NADFAS REVIEW /WINTER 2016 www.nadfas.org.uk A classical approachAbove: Palladio’s ‘La Rotunda’Opposite, top: Villa BadoerRight: Detail on the Palazzo ChiericatiStretching from the magnifi cent peaks of the Dolomites and the shores of Lake Garda to the sandy beaches of the Adriatic, the region of Veneto encompasses not only Venice, but also the ravishing and relatively crowd-free medieval cities like Padua, Verona and Vicenza. It is also home to the architectural wonders of Andrea Palladio. Born 1508 in Padua as Andrea Di Pietro della Gondola, Palladio is one of the most infl uential architects in history – and the only one to have a style specifi cally named after them. After a few years as an apprentice stonemason, and a move to Vicenza, he became a protegee of scholar and amateur architect Gian Giorgio Trissino, who introduced the young man to the grand ruins of ancient Rome – and renamed him Palladio, after the Greek goddess of wisdom Pallas Athene. Palladio was also greatly infl uenced by reading De Architectura by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the only architectural treatise to survive from antiquity. Vitruvius’s statement that “the architect must not only understand drawing, but music” struck a particular chord, inspiring Palladio to create buildings with balanced elements and harmonious proportions – melodies in stone. The region is dotted with his works. While Venice has Palladian churches like San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore, and Bassano del Grappa has a gorgeous wooden bridge over the River Brenta (as well as fantastic artisan grappa makers), it is Vicenza that has Palladio’s brilliant palaces. The Palazzo Chiericati showcases architectural harmony using musical ratios to guide proportions of adjacent rooms. The Palazzo Thiene, meanwhile, creates grandeur with stucco surface reliefs plus columns two storeys high. Palladio’s renown, however, rest largely on the ravishing villas he produced for Veneto nobles from the 1530s onward. But what From the White House to Syon House, Palladio is one of the world’s most infl uential architects – but nowhere is better to explore his legacy than the Italian region of Veneto