Palladio and Palladianism

Andrea Palladio, probably the most famous architect in the Western world, stands at the beginning of the movement called Palladianism. For the landed gentry of sixteenth-century Venice he evolved a version of Renaissance architecture, combining classical authority, dignity and comfort, which he made available to the whole of Europe in his book Quattro libri dell'architettura. So successful was the Palladian formula that it was consciously revived in other countries and in other times: by In...