Andrea Palladio

Andrea di Pietro della Gondola was born in Padua in 1508 and died at Maser (Treviso) in 1580.
He was one of the most famous architects of the Renaissance. He worked in Vicenza from an early age; in 1524 he was already working with the stonemason Giovanni da Pedemuro and Girolamo Pittoni. He also worked as a chiseller at Villa Cricoli, and it was here that he was discovered by the owner of the villa, Count Giangiorgio Trissino, who gave him the name of Palladio, from Pallas, Goddess of Knowledge.
Trissino put him up in his own house and encouraged him in his studies of ancient architecture (Vitruvio), engineering and military technique. They went to Rome together many times.
Palladio had the opportunity of getting to know the work of Serlio and Giulio Romano. He soon found himself introduced into noble circles, and people were ordering projects not only from Vicenza, but also Venice and other towns of the Veneto.
He studied and created projects of various kinds: town (Palazzo Valmarana, Palazzo Barbaran, Palazzo Da Porto, etc.), country villas (La Rotonda, Villa Barbaro at Maser, etc.), churches (Redentore and San Giorgio at Venice), public buildings (Basilica of Vicenza), theatres (Teatro Olimpico), ornamentation for altars and tombs (Valmarana chapel).
In 1555 the Olympic Academy was born in Vicenza, a group of noblemen with a passion for arts and science, of which Palladio became the only artist.
In 1570 he published in Venice the "Four Books of Architecture", a seminal text in the history of architecture. The text went through numerous editions and was translated many times, becoming the main source of the spread of Palladianism in Europe and America.