Señor

This guide is given out free to teachers and full-time students with an exhibition ticket
and ID at the Education Desk and is available to other visitors from
the RA Shop at a cost of £3.95 (while stocks last).

Visit the Architecture Space to see
Palladio: Through the Eyes of Contemporary Architects

ANDREA PALLADIO
HIS LIFE AND LEGACY

ANDREA PALLADIO
HIS LIFE AND LEGACY

MainGalleries
31 January – 13 April 2009

An Introduction to the Exhibition
for Teachers and Students

Written by Kate Goodwin
For the Education Department
© Royal Academy of Arts

This exhibition has been organised by the
Royal Academy of Arts, London,
and the Centro Internazionale di Studi di
Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza,
with the collaboration of the
Royal Institute of BritishArchitects, London.

FRONT COVER

Andrea Palladio
Façade of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
© 1990. Photo Scala, Florence

BACK COVER

Andrea Palladio
Plan of the Villa Capra, known as ‘La Rotonda’, Vicenza
Engraving reproduced in I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura
Venice, 1570, II, p.19

I NTRODUCTION

There is a certain magic about standing in a building by AndreaPalladio
(1508‒80), whether it is one of his country villas designed for the Venetian
nobility or the arcade he created around the Basilica in Vicenza, a city with
which his name is now synonymous. He took the classical ancient Roman
architecture and used it to create a new, modern style. Even when he
created grand and magnificent buildings for his wealthy patrons, the spaces,
despite their size,maintain a human quality through their simple forms,
scaled to ensure that the dimensions are always elegantly proportioned.
Working throughout the Veneto, a region in north-eastern Italy centred on
Venice and encompassing the cities of Verona, Vicenza and Padua, he
brings the beautiful light of the region into all his buildings. His fame first
came through these buildings, but quickly spreadinternationally when he
published I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture,
1570), a seminal book that used words and images in such a masterful way
as to create an architectural pattern-book that has been followed by
admirers for over 400 years. This exhibition celebrates the 500th
anniversary of the birth of this great architect.
During his forty-year career,Palladio was able to design an
exceptional number of buildings, aided by his practical approach to design
and construction, revolutionary ‘kit of parts’, and amenable personality.
As his biographer, Paolo Gualdo, said in 1616:
Palladio was a most able and attractive conversationalist so that he gave the most
intense pleasure to the gentlemen and aristocrats with whom he dealt. The same is
truefor the workmen he used whom he kept constantly cheerful, treated them with
so many pleasant attentions they all worked with the most exceptional good cheer.
He eagerly and lovingly taught them the best principles of the arts in such a way that
there was not a mason, stone cutter or carpenter who did not understand the
measurements, elements and rules of true architecture.

The secret toPalladio’s personality can be found in his formative years.
Unlike Bramante (1444‒1514), Raphael (1483‒1520) and Michelangelo
(1475‒1564), who came to architecture from the visual arts, Palladio
trained as a stonemason.

F ROM STONEMASON TO ARCHITECT
Designed by Isambard Thomas, London
Printed by Tradewinds Ltd

Palladio was born in Padua in 1508 during one of the greatest creative
periodsin Western European cultural history, the Renaissance. The son
of a miller and minor businessman, Palladio, encouraged by his godfather,
was apprenticed as a stonemason at the age of thirteen. In 1524 he moved
to Vicenza, a city on which he would leave his mark: firstly with his work
as a stonemason and later through his architectural legacy. He was an
accomplished stonemason and although not...