Vicenza

Vicenza

Vicenza, Palladio and the UNESCO

Details: Last Updated: Friday, 19 August 2016 12:28

VICENZA AND THE VILLAS OF PALLADIO IN THE WORLD HERITAGE LIST

unesco-en For this reason
- VICENZA IS AN EXCEPTIONAL ARTISTIC CREATION CONSIDERING THE NUMEROUS ARCHITECTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY ANDREA PALLADIO, ALL OF WHICH ARE INTEGRATED INTO A HISTORICAL CONTEXT THAT GIVES THE CITY ITS OVERALL CHARACTER
- THE CITY’S ARCHITECTURE HAS HAD A STRONG INFLUENCE OVER THE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING IN THE MAJORITY OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND THE WHOLE WORLD

and therefore as foreseen by the Convention’s evaluation criteria:
i) the cultural asset must represent the work of art of a genius
ii) the cultural asset must have had a considerable influence in a particular historical or cultural period on the architectural development of monuments, urban context or landscape

UNESCO, the UN agency for Science and Culture has placed Vicenza and Palladio’s villas on the list of the World’s Heritages

vicenza FILEminimizer

What is the World Heritage List?
In 1972, the UNESCO General Conference endorsed the Convention which has so far been signed by 130 countries.
The Convention is to define the world's Heritage by listing the assets considered to be of such exceptional interest and universal value that their preservation concerns the whole of mankind.
Countries signing the Convention undertake to preserve the wealth recognized as being exceptional within their territory, with assistance from the international community.

The villas by Andrea Palladio

Details: Last Updated: Friday, 19 August 2016 12:51

Most people who intend to visit the Palladian villas go to the Riviera del Brenta for the now traditional boat tour, to sail the river Brenta upstream from Venice to Padua or the other way round, and to stop along the riverside to admire the marvellous buildings the Venetian noblemen had built.

Not everybody knows, though, that most of those villas are called "Palladian" not because Palladio had them built, but because they are inspired by the principles and canons of that architecture which expresses itself best in those villas Palladio really had built, two centuries before, mainly in the province of Vicenza.

Thus, the study and the discovery of the villa can not go without a visit to the province, where Palladio left his most substantial part of his heritage, which, over the centuries, has inspired not only the villas on the river Brenta, but also the Anglo-Saxon, the French and the European world generally and stretches also overseas.

To understand the impact of the figure and the work of Palladio on worldwide architecture, just consider that "Palladianism" is the only style that gets its name from an artist.

The villas acknowledged as Palladio's are 24: 16 in the province of Vicenza, 3 in the province of Treviso, 2 in the province of Padua and one apiece in the provinces of Rovigo, Verona and Venice.

Villas-Palladio

To organize your trip in Vicenza area check opening times and rates here

Download the road map with all the villas of the province

Vicenza the city of Palladio

Details: Last Updated: Friday, 19 August 2016 12:41

panorama of Vicenza

Vicenza and Palladio: an inseparable pair, because the former doesn't exist without the latter, and the latter, although he worked in other provinces too, left the biggest concentration of his wonderful masterpieces in this territory.

Today Vicenza is, in fact, one of Italy's cities with the highest number of monumental complexes compared to its extension. This makes it a real unexpected jewel to those visitors who take a walk in the old town centre.
A great part of the architectural works by Palladio was created in the Vicenza territory, starting from 1540. The architect worked without distinction both for private and public clients, thus helping to profoundly change the city's aspect.

The famous French art historian Courajod called Vicenza "a place blessed by heaven, one of those nests prepared by nature for the birth of Italian art, which, at the beginning of the Renaissance, didn't fail to flourish."

But perhaps it is Goethe's words in his "Italian Journey" which express the value, the importance and the fascination of Palladio's artwork best:
"I arrived but a few hours ago, but I already took a glance at the town, and I saw the Teatro Olimpico and Palladio's buildings... It is only with these monuments before our eyes that we can comprehend their great value. With their bulk and their impressiveness they must, so to say, fill our eyes, whereas the beautiful harmony of their dimensions, not only in the abstract design, but in the whole of their perspective, both what protrudes and what recedes, pleases the spirit. And this is really, in my opinion, the case of Palladio: an extraordinary man, both for what he felt within and for what he could express without."

PALLADIAN ROUTE IN VICENZA CITY CENTRE