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| Andrea Palladio |
Should
you ever find yourself in Venice...
…don’t
hesitate to leave. A day trip to nearby Vicenza could be the perfect
antidote to the languid, effervescent beauty of la
Serenissima and the
swirling flocks of tourists and pigeons milling about St Mark's Square. After
all, tiny Vicenza’s austere classical architecture offers a
refreshing relief from Venice's relentless picturesqueness and
effortlessly re-calibrates one's visual standards with a healthy dose
of Palladian monumentality.
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| Vicenza photographed by Salvorio Bortolamei |
Grandiose facades line Vicenza's empty, echoing
streets, heralds of the heroic moment that was the Renaissance, when
beauty was a cherished ideal based on classical mathematics and
Humanist proportions which found their meaning in the exaltation of
ideal man. The concerns of today’s architecture—rigidly
ideological, relentlessly conceptual and highly arbitrary in its
worship of individuality—would have elicited astonishment in the
age of Palladio. Beauty was not an idiosyncrasy found in the eye of
the beholder but rather was a concrete, non-negotiable principle. For
such a small city, Vicenza is brimming with palazzi whose
introspective grandeur defies both style and fashion; their nobility
and aloofness both demands our respect and commands our attention.
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| The Villa Rotonda | | | | |
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| The Villa Rotonda's Rotonda |
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Of
course the city’s most famous structure, the Villa Rotonda (also
called the Villa Valmarana after its current owners), is neither a
palazzo nor does it sit in the old town. Instead, the Rotonda
overlooks Vicenza from a distant hilltop, commanding picture-perfect
views across the city. Built between 1566 and 1571 for the apostolic
prelate Paolo Almeri, the villa is Andrea Palladio’s masterpiece,
perfection in stone, and it would announce and even define modernity
for centuries to come. A cold star immovably fixed in the firmament
of architectural history, the Villa Rotonda has instructed, inspired
and challenged architects for nearly half a millennium. Like Mies
van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion, it has become an icon and an
unrivaled example of what erudition, talent, taste and money can,
with the rare spark of genius, achieve.
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| The Teatro Olimpico's stage screen |
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| The teatro's ampitheater-inspired seating |
Overshadowed by the
blinding fame of the Villa Rotonda, another of Palladio's
masterpieces leads a more quiet existence in the old town of Vicenza.
Near to the Palazzo Chiericati and hidden behind the thick walls of
medieval fortifications, the Teatro Olimpico is a breathtaking
discovery. Commissioned for the town in 1580 by the Olympic academy,
a body of the leading citizens (Palladio was a founding member), the
teatro was the first indoor theater to be erected since Roman
times and consequently is also the oldest extant modern theater in
the world. It was inaugurated to great acclaim on the 3rd
March 1585 with a performance of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.
Palladio died the year construction began and so if fell upon his
protege, Vincenzo Scamozzi, to oversee the theater's construction.
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| The theater's plan |
In
a brilliant gesture, Palladio turned the awkwardly shaped lot of the
old fortress into the structure's greatest asset. Inspired by the
hemispherical plan of Antique theaters, he planned the seating about
an elegant half-oval facing the stage. The rings of seats rise just
like in any open-air amphitheater, while the stage is defined by a
triumphant architectural screen recalling the grandeur of ancient
Rome. The elaborate, sophisticated stage wall, enriched with numerous
sculptures and busts and made of wood painted in trompe l'oeil to
resemble stucco and marble, was only finished after Palladio’s death
and so must be considered Scamozzi’s masterpiece. To him we also
must attribute the three forced-perspective archways piercing the
stage wall, an optical trick which gives the shallow stage depth and
drama and overcomes the constraints of the actual space. In
reference to Antiquity, the ceiling was painted to imitate open sky,
inspiring countless thousands of cloud- and putti-bedecked imitators.
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| Vincenzo Scamozzi |
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Though
overshadowed by its famous English contemporary, the Globe, the
teatro is the true progenitor of all modern theaters and so it
is that court theaters across Europe, from Gripsholm to the
Hermitage, derive from this unique creation. However, this apogee of
architectural and decorative accomplishment so seemingly effortlessly
displayed in Vicenza would never be reached again. There the
illusion is perfect, art and artifice prevail over reality and
nothing is more magical than to attend a performance of Monteverdi’s
The Coronation of Poppaea in such a perfect setting.
