Villa Godi

Andrea Palladio's first commission, Villa Godi.
Salon in the centre of Villa Godi.

Villa Godi is a patrician villa in Lugo di Vicenza, Veneto, northern Italy. It was one of the first projects by Andrea Palladio, as attested in his monograph - I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. The work was commissioned by the brothers Girolamo, Pietro and Marcantonio Godi, started in 1537 and concluded in 1542, with later modifications to the rear entry and gardens.

The villa has been designated by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto". The villa and extensive gardens are open to the public in the afternoon, year round. The building also houses a museum of archeology in the basement, with hundreds of fossils of plant and animal life in the region. Its large park was laid out in the 19th century and was used as a film location for Senso.

Contents

Architectural Details

Villa Godi from I quattro libri dell'architettura (1570)


The building is striking for the lack of ornamentation usually associated with Palladio's mature work, and for the refined, symmetrical proportions of the façade and massing of the structure.1 The plan is arranged with two apartments on each side of the central axis with a recessed entry loggia and the main salon. The plan published in I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura indicates that there was intended to be an extensive complex of farm buildings.


This preliminary work by Palladio still demonstrates characteristics of the architecture of his time. A harmonic unity of landscape and architecture does not yet seem to have been an aspiration. The building is a massive block consisting of three separate parts. The representational and living areas are clearly separate from each other and do not present a unified appearance. The flight of steps is flanked by balusters and, in its width, corresponds to the middle arcade of the loggia 2.

Frescoes

The interior was decorated with fine frescoes initially by Gualtiero Padovano, and later by Giovanni Battista Zelotti and Battista del Moro in whose "Hall of the Muses" are to be seen caryatids within a composition of muses and poets in Arcadian landscapes. Ruins of a Greek temple also form the backdrop for the depiction of Olympian gods. This is followed by symbols of peace and justice, a common theme in Venetian villas following the War of the League of Cambrai and the desire for a new Pax Veneziana or great peace within the Republic of Venice 3

References

  1. ^ Wundram, Manfred, "Andrea Palladio 1508-1580, Architect Between the Renaissance and Baroque" (Taschen, Cologne 1993) ISBN 3-8228-0271-9 p 10
  2. ^ Ibid. p.11, 15
  3. ^ Ibid. p.16

External links

See also

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Villas by Andrea Palladio

Coordinates: 45°44′51″N 11°32′00″E / 45.7475, 11.533333

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