Palladio, the villa and the landscape

Andrea Palladio is universally regarded as one of the most important architects of the Re-naissance. He was the first professional architect and was strongly influenced by Greek and Roman architecture, particularly by Vitruvius. His treatise Quattro libri dell architettura also earned him worldwide recognition. Palladio s villas are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This book documents and analyzes ten of Palladio s eighteen surviving villas specifically in terms of their relationship with their natural surroundings; their influence on those surroundings is investigated as well. The selected villas constitute a representative cross section of Palladio s wide-ranging output. The landscape formations of Veneto, where these villas are located, may be divided into three types: plains surrounded by mountains, arid plains, and marshland.