Pages

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio. The proper name is Villa Almerico Capra, but it is also known as La Rotonda, Villa Rotonda, Villa Capra and Villa Almerico. The name "Capra" derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after it was ceded to them in 1592. Along with other works by Palladio, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto"."Perhaps the art of architecture has never reached such a height," the German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in his notebook, when he came to La Rotonda in 1786 on a personal pilgrimage. Goethe evidently managed to get inside, since he described the domed central hall as "of the most beautiful proportions".