Villa Badoer - The Project By Palladio

The Project By Palladio

There are no surviving drawings by Palladio relating to Villa Badoer, nor any building accounts, except those published by the architect in his I quattro libri dell'architettura (1570).

Probably as a result of exploiting the substructures of the medieval castle, the manor house of the villa rises on a high basement, and recalls illustrious precedents like the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano by Giuliano da Sangallo, and the not far distant Villa dei Vescovi at Luvigliano by Giovanni Maria Falconetto. Building on the old foundations saved money, and gave a slightly raised setting to the building. This manoeuvre rendered necessary a scenographic staircase of several flights leading to the front door of the villa, the main descending to the courtyard and the two lateral ones connecting with the gable-ends of the barchesse. Thus, the ensemble recalls the structures of an antique, terraced temple complex.

The very elegant curvilinear barchesse are the only ones that were actually realised by Palladio from the many projected (for example, those for the Villa Mocenigo on the Brenta, the Villa Thiene at Cicogna or the Villa Trissino at Meledo) and their shape — as Palladio himself writes — recalls arms opening to receive the visitor: the relevant antique source was very probably the exedrae of the Temple of Augustus in Rome. These originally housed agricultural activities, for this was a working villa, like Villa Emo and most of the villas by Palladio. Unusually among Palladio's completed works, the wings here do not actually touch the villa, and they are set slightly in front of it. Vasari thought that they were beautiful, and even fantastic.

On the barchesse Palladio used the Tuscan order, appropriate to their utilitarian function and for the opportunity they afforded of realising very broad intercolumniations which would not impede carriage access. Instead, the villa’s loggia displays an elegant Ionic order, to emphasise its residential, manorial status. The visual focus of the entire complex was centred precisely on the dominant axis of the great triangular pediment supported by Ionic columns, which bears the family arms, such that the villa’s flanks and rear are absolutely unarticulated and present a simply utilitarian aspect. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment in the facade of a villa.

Moreover, the distributive structure of the manorial house reveals Palladio’s usual organisation into a vertical axis, with service rooms occupying the basement storey, the patron’s habitation on the piano nobile and a granary in the attic.

The plan and elevation of Villa Badoer presented in Palladio's woodcuts in the Quattro Libri of 1570 is somewhat different from what was really built there. A rear elevation and portico shown in the book were never built, but whether interrupted and not resumed, or curtailed in the course of construction are not known. Puppi suggested "that the omission of the ceremonial features from the back façade had been decided by the patron, who must have thought them unnecessary in confrontation with the empty expanse of open countryside, and with the short extent of his property... on that side."

• The pediment seen from a barchessa

• Side prospect

• Structure of the roof of a curved barchessa

• View inside the loggia