ART AND ARCHTECTURE
The Villa Almerico Capra, designed by the architect Andrea Palladio, is popularly known as the Villa La Rotonda. The structure is well known and is now recognized as a UNESCO historical site.1 Palladio has been described as “the world’s most imitated architect” by the architectural historian, James Ackerman.2
Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Villa Americo when he designed the rotonda at his home in Monticello.3 Art and architecture meet in the most beautifully designed villa in the world Villa Americo Capra. A rotunda most simply defined is a circular room topped by a dome but the Villa La Rotonda is architecturally much more complicated. The villa is located on a beautiful natural landscape at the outskirts of Vicenza, Italy. The land surrounding the hill of the site is mostly agricultural with wooded areas and gardens within the grounds of the villa. The site was specifically chosen by Palladio for its beautiful scenic views from the windows and the natural light available. After his first visit to the La Rotonda J. W. Goethe wrote “Maybe never architectural art has reached such a level of magnificence.”4
Function
The design of Palladio for villas in Veneto province, northern Italy redefined the description ‘villa’ to not only mean a place to live but a gorgeous and well proportioned structure. The villas which Palladio built in northern Italy were not like city palaces but were carefully constructed aristocratic country homes which were surrounded by the family’s farms. Palladio’s northern Italian villas combined his knowledge of ancient architecture as well as functionality with the sacred.5 By combining these aspects he created ‘villa temples.’
The Roman Pantheon was Palladio’s inspiration for the design. He had admired the classical Roman Pantheon years before first from written accounts and then when he had sketched and studied classical structures in Rome. The Villa was commissioned in about 1570 C.E. by Paolo Americo Capra, a Roman Catholic bishop to use as his home when he retired from the Vatican to live in northern Italy. Palladio died fourteen years after starting construction of La Rotonda; his protégé, Vincenzo Scamozzi was in charge of the completion of the structure and kept to the plan of his mentor.
The family Capra of Italian nobility purchased the villa in 1591. In 1911 the villa was purchased by the Venetian Count Valmarana and his descendants still own the villa. The Count’s descendants are responsible for the recent 20th century restoration. The contemporary use of La Rotonda is not for living space as a home instead, the building and grounds are now open to the public at certain times during the week. Today La Rotonda Villa functions as a meeting place. For example, “Leading companies and important brands have been at La Rotonda for the meetings and events, searching for a special atmosphere and exclusive elegance. The organisation can provide any kind of facility, from catering to security.”6 Other events that can be scheduled at the La Rotonda include
“exclusive dinners” which can accommodate up to 150 guests and private business lunches.7 Concerts are held during the spring and summer in the gardens. The concerts can accommodate an audience of up to three thousand people.8
The original project was to build a home for the family of Bishop Almerico and his family. This was a special project for Palladio because Americo appreciated the design vision of Palladio and allowed him to use his architectural skills to construct his vision of a villa. The villa was used as a home for many centuries but now it functions as a place to schedule meetings and events. The public can know enjoy the talent and skills of Palladio because the grounds and building are open at certain times each week for viewing.
Structure
Palladio was a Renaissance man living in the Renaissance age and he used the theories of mathematics and he used number symbolism for calculating the proportion of the La Rotonda. His goal was to reach a harmony between the structure and its surroundings. Although in the past his design was thought to be arbitrary, in fact it was very well planned.
Palladio recommends that the heights of rooms should be either the harmonic, geometric or arithmetic means of the lengths and breadths. For instance, for a double square plan the three dimensions can be either as 6:8:12 (harmonic) or as 6:9:12 (arithmetic). He warns, however, that a convenient numerical expression of the geometric mean is not always possible; in fact it is so only when the product of the length and breadth is a perfect square, their geometric mean being then the square root of that product: for example, 4:6:9.910
As for the symbolism the floor plan reflects the symbolism of the Holy Trinity because he seems to have based the dimensions on the number 3 and its square root.11 The foundation of the structure was laid out in the shape of a cross with four branches of equal lengths in each direction, north, south, east and west. At the intersection of the cross, the centre, is the building is shaped like a square and the domed rotunda was built above this space. This design is known as the Greek cross.
Faccio explains that the lateral closing elements are designed to connect the interior with the exterior in a symmetrical construction.12 There are four sides of equal length and each is preceded its own portico or ‘porch’. The four porticos have staircases leading to the hallway which allows entrance into the main hall which the dome protects. Six ionic style columns were used to support and visually emphasize the pediments in each of the porticos which are decorated with statues of Poseidon and other ancient Gods.13 The second floor, the piano nobile in Italian, was the original for the main living quarters. The architectural wings were the colonnades for the porticos.
The three main structural characteristics easily distinguishable in the Villa La Rotonda are (a) the Greek cross plan, (b) the four identical facades (equal in length with matching porticos and (c) the change from Gothic to Renaissance architectural designs. Ancient Roman homes were built with a triangular pediment on the top of the facades and Palladio also incorporated this into almost all his villas including the Rotunda. Photos and drawings also display the use of vertical string moulding on the exterior of the facades at the base which is simple in design. It can be identified also at the windows. The string moulding helps the eye follow the straight vertical lines of the structure and gives an impression of elegance and simplicity.
Conclusion
Simply described the Villa La Rotonda appears like a simple symmetrical building of four identical porches comprising the four sides of the building. The porches or porticos resemble temples in their harmonic proportionality and the use of the Ionic columns and stone sculptors. In the centre is the round main hall or main salon, which is ceilinged by a dome. Therefore the structure can be considered a series of squares with a perfectly round circle in the centre. Not only is the structure built with the harmonious use of squares in squares; Palladio also made sure that the Villa was in harmony with the surrounding environment.
Now it is hard to imagine the Villa La Rotonda as a house but the neo-classical look and design has been copied in the United States since George Washington at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. In contemporary times many large suburban homes are designed in a neo-classical Palladian manner and have attracted many buyers.
Technical Notes14
Andrea Palladio, Architect
Frescos by Alessandro Maganza and Lodovico Dorigny
Statuary by Lorenzo Rubini
Stuccos by Lorenzo Rubini, Ruggero Bascape and Domenico Fontana
Acroterriale by G. B. Albanese
Fireplaces by Bartolomeo Ridolfi
References
Faccio, R. (n.d.) Villa Capra – Andrea Palladio. Palladian Villa. Retrieved 2 June 2012 from https://sites.google.com/site/palladianvilla/
Garcia, A. (2008) Perspective Analysis of the Proportions of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda: Making the Invisible Visible Nexus Network Journal. 10: 269-282.
Giovanni G. & Kim W. (2009). The Villas of Palladio. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Highlights of Villa Almerico ora Valmarana (“La Rotonda”) (n.d.) Retrieved 2 June 2012 http://www.boglewood.com/palladio/rotonda.html
McEnroe, J. C. Artists, Writers, and Musicians: An Encyclopaedia of People Who Changed the World. M.-A. Bossy, T. Brothers, & J. C. McEnroe, (Eds.). Westport, CT: Oryx Press. 2001.
Padovan, R. (1999). Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture. New York, NY: Spon Press.
Palladio, A. I Quattro libri dell’architettura, Venice, 1570; The Four Books on Architecture, Trans. R. Tavernor and R. Schofield, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1997.
UNESCO World Heritage List. (n.d.) City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto. Retrieved 2 June 2012 http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/712
Villa La Rotonda, Andrea Palladio. The Official Home Page. 2009. Web. Retrieved from http://www.villalarotonda.it/en/homepage.htm
