Villa Capra "La Rotonda"

Introduction

Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa built on a hill just outside the city of Vicenza and 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 1591 and the name "La Rotonda" is due to its completely symmetrical structure, that grows around a circular hall topped with a dome. Like other works by Palladio in Vicenza and the surrounding area, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".

The Design

The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos.

The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome, and a matter of fact the villa was itself inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and its dome was initially designed opened by an oculus but then was made ​​into a flattened shape and closed.

So describing the villa, as a whole, as a 'rotonda' is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross.

The villa's height is divided into three levels, delimited by ornament on relief: the first one ends with the floor of the portico and has two squared windows, the second one ends with the beginning of the pediment and has one access and two rectangular windows for each facade and the third level shows another four squared windows.

On two of the four facades the second level has further windows that sorround the access, four rectangular on its sides and four squared up above. The windows, which flank the portico, and the accesses are decorated with an ornament.

Each portico, bordered by two arches, has steps leading up, opening via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular central hall, and a pediment supported by six Ionic columns.

Moreover the tympanum has two oval windows and is completely sorrounded by a row of guttae.

At last the porticos are crossed by arched tunnels, whose access is close to another squared windows on the walls that delimite the stairway.

@Copyright: I don't own this images that were searched on google and were used only to get an idea of the structure and proportions of the villa.