Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza in Northern Italy designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, and begun in 1567, though not completed until 1605. The villa's official name is Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, but it is also known as "La Rotonda", "Villa Rotonda", "Villa Capra", and "Villa Almerico Capra". The name Capra derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after they acquired it in 1592. Along with other works by Palladio, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".
Inspiration In 1565 Paolo Almerico, a clerk and nobleman, on his retirement from the Vatican (as referendario apostolico of Pope Pius IV and afterwards Pius V), returned to his home town of Vicenza in the Venetian countryside and built a country house.Some like to consider this being the first addition of suburbs as it wasn’t built to be surrounding a farm. The building wasn’t meant to actually be inhabited even though it is described as a habitable place. It is proportionate enough where someone could live there but not a reputable family over the summer time. This house, later known as 'La Rotonda', was to be one of Palladio's best-known legacies to the architectural world. Villa Capra may have inspired a thousand subsequent buildings, but the villa was itself inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. It was also inspired by Christian and pagan architecture in the columns of the four pronai, the building is described to be a villa temple.
Design The site selected was a hilltop just outside the city of Vicenza. Unlike some other Palladian villas of the Veneto, the building was not designed from the start to accommodate a working farm. This sophisticated building was designed for a site which was, in modern terminology, "suburban". Palladio classed the building as a "palazzo" rather than a villa.
The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos (illustration, left). On all four facades built is a loggia where there are statues made by Master Lorenzi Vicentino. Under these and under the hall's level are rooms for the household's use and convenience. The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome. To describe the villa, as a whole, as a rotunda is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross. Each portico has steps leading up to it, and opens via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular domed central hall. The Hall is located in the center and tends to catch the light from the top. The smaller rooms located in the villa are mezzanines, over the big rooms that have vaults fashioned in the first manner and connects back to the hall and around. This and all other rooms were proportioned with mathematical precision according to Palladio's rules of architecture which he published in I quattro libri dell'architettura. In Palladio's book Quattro Libri, it shows a high pitched roof and dome which in the actual building is low pitched and the dome is stepped. Work spaces for the villa's servants are hidden underneath the first floor, which is accessed via staircases hidden inside the walls of the central hall. The design reflected the humanist values of Renaissance architecture. In order for each room to have some sun, the design was rotated 45 degrees from each cardinal point of the compass. Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by statues of classical deities. The pediments were each supported by six Ionic columns. Each portico was flanked by a single window. All principal rooms were on the second floor or piano nobile. Building began in 1567. Neither Palladio nor the owner, Paolo Almerico, were to see the completion of the villa. The owner Almerico passed away in 1589 where the Villa was then transferred over to his illegitimate son Virginio. Palladio died in 1580 and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi, was employed by the new owners to oversee the completion. One of the major changes he made to the original plan was to modify the two-storey central hall.
Palladio had intended it to be covered by a high semi-circular dome but Scamozzi designed a lower dome with an oculus (intended to be open to the sky) inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The dome was ultimately completed with a cupola. After the Villa was built, analysts saw that it differed from the original drawings of Palladio. In understanding it they have been confronted with three different versions. Firstly, the original published by Palladio in I quattro libri dell'architettura of 1570. The second is the current finished product of the construction. And third is the state of its first completion. The building's access points are only through the four pronaos, and unlike any other normal villa, the service quarters and the granary can only be accessed through the central hall then through the four internal staircases. However this part of the design was in Palladio's original drawings but now the current standing version allows direct access from the outside into the service floor. The design circulation isn’t optimal for the space. Carts that bring in fresh agricultural produce have to make a sharp turn at the corner to get into the building and there isn’t any connection to the central; space from the staircases on the ground level.
Interior
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