CHAPTER SEVEN
LA ROTUNDA AND THE DREAM OF
This chapter considers Palladio’s most utopian of
villas, La Rotunda and looks at how, whilst it was intended as a place for
otium and entertainment and therefore similar in function to the villas of central
The
Villa Rotunda was not intended to be a farm centre; but a place for otium and entertainment
close to the city. Modest in execution it is relatively small and built almost entirely of
brick and stucco with only the key decorative elements carved in stone. In spite of the modesty of scale and
materials its elegance gave it a high value in the sixteenth century and it was
sold for the very large sum of 18, 500 ducats in 1591[i]. The creation of the work sprung from the
artist’s awareness of the two-fold nature of the task represented by the high
rank of the patron and the quality of the chosen site. The client, Paolo Almerico, was a highly esteemed
man of the church, who had been Apostolic Referendary to Popes Pius IV and Pius
V. He had returned to his native city of
Unlike the Villa Barbaro at Maser, it could be said
that this work was formed as a house of the golden age of antiquity. A distinct recreation of the place of peace
and complete harmony between man and nature as evoked in the great Arcadian
inspired letters of Pliny the Younger, Petrarch and Ovid and as an embodiment
of these dreams of arcadia on the Terraferma.
The Rotunda recalls the divine connections between man, scienza and
nature, and the myth of
Indeed, all of Palladio’s buildings are an expression
of magnificence that commends the virtue and nobility of the patron to the
viewer yet the Rotunda, being unburdened by the demands of a functional villa,
seems take the purity of this utopian vision to its height. Ackermann must have had the Rotunda in mind
when he highlighted this element of Palladio’s architecture. He writes that the:
“mythical dimension of
the ideology of the villa frees it from the concrete limitations of a
utilitarian and productive nature and makes it the perfect place to demonstrate
the creative aspirations of both the client and the architect.”[iii]
Figure 25, Palladio:
La Rotunda 1566 - 1570[iv]
Like the Tempietto at Maser, the Rotunda is an
interesting example of centralised spatial organisation and the imposing
effects it can achieve, both within the work itself and its affect upon a landscape. Puzzi has claimed that there should be no
doubt that the immediate reference for the work was Palladio’s dream of an
acropolis, which lay behind the invention of the Villa Trissino at Meledo
(fig.24,p.63). The plans for Meledo,
reputedly begun before those for the Rotunda,[v] share an
undeniable relationship. Although there
was no radical reduction in the elements of Meledo to form a centripetal
convergence, a circular drawing room was introduced which then led to the use
of advanced loggias on four sides and the use of a cupola as a roof. In the Rotunda this idea was transferred into
an authentic formal existence. It was
also no coincidence that, as the only two of Palladio’s villas with a centrally
planned ground plan, both the villa at Meledo and the Rotunda were planned with
the view of siting the villa at the top of a hill. For the Villa at Meledo Palladio writes:
The site is beautiful, because it is on a hill and in the middle of a
very open plain. At the summit of the
hill there is to be the round hall, surrounded by the rooms.[vi]
He
describes the site for the Rotunda on the outskirts of
The site is
beautiful, and among the most agreeable
and pleasant that can be found: because it is surmounted by a hillock which can
easily be reached… and surrounded by most pleasant hills which create the
appearance of a vast theatre… so that it enjoys beautiful views on all sides…
loggias have been made on all four of its sides[vii]
This
unusually emotive description by Palladio is especially interesting in
connection to Pliny’s description of his Tuscan villa in his Letters.
The similarities between the two texts, and the popularity of Pliny’s
works, would have meant that the connection between the two creations, and
therefore the two ideals, was very deliberate and clear. Pliny writes:
Imagine to yourself an amphitheatre of immense
proportions, such as could be formed only by the hand of nature. A wide extended plain is surrounded by
mountains whose summits are covered with tall ancient woods, stocked with game
for all types of hunting… You would be much delighted were you to take a
prospect of this place from a neighbouring mountain, as you could scarcely
believe you were looking upon a real country, but a landscape painting drawn with
all the beauties imaginable.[viii]
Figure 26, View of the Rotunda[ix]
The
theatricality of all of Palladio’s works, exemplified not only in their
appearance but in intention bestowed on them by their patrons and Palladio
himself is perhaps no clearer in any of Palladio’s writings than here. It is a distinction that is important for it
highlights what Palladio believed the essential role of architecture to be, an
organic metaphor of the world in all its harmony, of the great machine of the
world, the machina
indeed, if we consider this
beautiful machine of the world, with how many wonderful ornaments it is filled,
and how the heavens, by their continual revolutions, change the seasons
according as nature requires, and their motion preserves itself by the sweetest
harmony of temperature; we cannot doubt, but that the little temples we make,
ought to resemble this very great one.[x]
In
this sense the architect was one who understood the divine order, reproducing
its structure and motion. The powerful
Platonic undertones in this idea were almost certainly learned in part from
Daniele Barbaro, Giangiorgio Trissino and the Vicentine Academia Olimpica[xi]. The human architect, though not of course
equal to God, nevertheless imitates the Creator. While God builds with ‘one word’ and his work
is perfect, the human architect builds with his hand and mind in the temporal
world to achieve what is possible.