- Villa Cornaro
Villa Cornaro is a patrician
villa inPiombino Dese , about 30 km fromVenice, Italy . It was designed by the Italian architectAndrea Palladio .Architectural Details
The villa was constructed from about 1553, was mentioned a-building in 1556 and finished around 1596, for Giorgio Cornaro, younger son of a wealthy Venetian family. It represents one of the most remarkable examples of a Renaissance villa. The north façade ("illustrated") has a central portico-loggia that is a flexible living space out of the sun and open to cooling breezes. The interior space is a harmonious arrangement of the strictly symmetrical floor plans on which Palladio insisted without exception. Rooms of inter-related proportions composed of squares and
golden rectangle s flank a central axial vista that extends clear through the house; asRudolph Wittkower noted, [Wittkower, "Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism" (London: Tiranti) 1962:72.] by moving subsidiary staircases into the projecting wings and filling matching corner spaces with paired oval principal stairs, space was left for a central "salone" that is fully as wide as the porticoes ("plan, left"); this central core forms a rectangle in which there are 3 x 2 repetitions of an elegant standard module. The interior has 18th century frescoes byMattia Bortoloni andstucco es byCamillo Mariani .Through its illustration in Palladio's "I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura ", ["Quattro Libri", Book II, p. 51.] Villa Cornaro became a model for villas all over the world, particularly in England and in colonial America.Thomas Jefferson was influenced by Villa Cornaro in the design ofMonticello .Conservation
Dr. Richard Rush purchased the Villa Cornaro in 1969 from an organization of the Italian Government dedicated to preserving the national monuments of Italy in the Veneto ("L'Ente Per Le Ville Venete"). He and his wife, Julia, restored the villa and furnished it with antiques over a period of twenty years. The villa is presently owned by Carl and Sally Gable, of
Atlanta, Georgia , who purchased it from Dr. Rush in 1989.The Gables have co-authored a book, "Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House" (Alfred A. Knopf , 2005)] Since 1996 the villa has been conserved as part of aWorld Heritage Site , "City of Vicenza and thePalladian Villas of the Veneto ".Media Interest
In the 1990s Villa Cornaro was featured in a television series "Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio," [cite web |url= http://www.bobvila.com/BVTV/AE/Palladio.html |title= "Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio"]
Bob Vila 's three-part six-hour production forA&E Network .Notes
References
* [http://www.cisapalladio.org/veneto/scheda.php?sezione=4&architettura=4&lingua=e "Palladio and the Veneto"] a catalogue of the villas maintained by www.cisapalladio.org, retrieved 4 April 2008. en icon it icon
* [http://www.boglewood.com/palladio/cornaro.html website of Villa Conaro]
* [http://www.boglewood.com/palladio/analysis.html "The Secrets of Palladio's Villas", Carl I. Gable]ee also
*
Palladian Villas of the Veneto
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