The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio (21 page)

P
ALLADIO’S SKETCHES OF DETAILS FROM THE
A
RCH OF
C
ONSTANTINE, LATE 1560S
(RIBA, XVII/5
verso
)

The Villa Sarego is Palladio at his most whimsical, but there are underlying consistencies in his work: ingenious planning that neatly combines rooms of predetermined proportions within simple rectangular buildings; inflexible biaxial symmetry of
plan and elevation; the taut geometry of the façades; the fusion of everyday building materials and techniques with antique elements; and a sophisticated aesthetic playfulness. If there is one current that underlies Palladio’s sense of style, it is what one historian has called his penchant for “telling details.”
¹²
Perhaps because he was trained as a stonemason, Palladio was particularly appreciative of the carved elements that adorned the exteriors—and interiors—of his otherwise rather plain villas. The pages of
Quattro libri,
and many surviving sheets of his drawings, are covered with minutely dimensioned cornices, friezes, moldings, and capitals. While the deployment of these details formed the basis of Palladio’s style, the
manner
of deployment varied greatly. Sometimes he re-created entire parts of ancient buildings, such as the Villa Barbaro temple front, sometimes he merely sketched in a molding or two. The quantity and intensity of detail varied from abundant to minimal, depending on the circumstances of the commission—the site, the functional program, the budget, and the client. The last was a particularly important consideration, for Palladio believed that houses should not only be functional, well-built, and beautiful, but that they should also express what he called
convenienza,
or suitability.

One must describe as suitable a house which will be appropriate to the status of the person who will have to live in it and of which the parts will correspond to the whole and to each other. But above all the architect must observe that . . . for great men and especially those in public office, houses with loggias and spacious, ornate halls will be required, so that those waiting to greet the master of the house or to ask him for some help or a favor can spend their time pleasantly in such spaces; similarly, smaller buildings of lesser expense and ornament will be appropriate for men of lower status. . . .
¹³

Thus what might appear to be stylistic variety in his villas was really a conscious fitting of houses to their owners. “As far as possible one must (as I have said) pay particular attention to those who want to build,” Palladio wrote, “not so much for what they can afford as for the type of building that would suit them.”
¹⁴
Bonifacio Poiana got a house with a soldierly bearing; the Foscari brothers got a sort of suburban palazzo; and Giorgio Cornaro got a house that would both glorify his ancestors and impress on his visitors that this second son was not taking second place. What would suit the Barbaro brothers? They clearly qualified as “great men in public office,” but they were also scholars and dilettantes. Daniele’s literary interests are reflected in the Latin maxims that surmount the windows of the front façade:
OMNIA TUTI BONIS
(All is safe for good people);
HOSPES NON HOSPI
(A guest not a stranger);
NON SOLUM DOMINI
(Not only for the master); and
NIL TECTI SUB TECTO
(Nothing hidden under this roof). The sayings convey a genial hospitality that is the classical equivalent of a “Welcome” doormat.

Convenienza
was also affected by the particular nature of the Barbaro estate. At only one hundred acres (largely vineyards), it was considerably smaller than Pisani’s fourteen hundred acres at Bagnolo, by cinquecento standards a hobby farm. Maser was not, however, merely a temporary pastoral retreat. The house appears to have been the brothers’ permanent year-round home, at least as permanent as their demanding public careers allowed. Consequently, the Villa Barbaro is less countrified than most of Palladio’s villas. He incorporated elements from his urban projects: pedimented windows and sculpture niches from the Palazzo Civena; a balustraded balcony from the Palazzo da Porto;
mascheroni
from the Basilica; and bucrania from the Palazzo Chiericati.

Having now seen several Palladio villas, I’m more critical of the Villa Barbaro than I was on my first visit. It’s a beautiful house that responds eloquently to its bucolic setting, but it is occasionally awkward. The scribed pattern of the stonework lacks Palladio’s usual flair. The little balustraded balconies are uncharacteristically fussy. The arcaded wings have his usual robust proportions, but the central block is too delicate to hold its own; nor is the abrupt collision of house and arcades fully resolved. Similarly brusque is the relationship between the ornate temple front of the
casa del padrone
and the rather plain sides. Having the brothers looking over his shoulder—and probably contributing their own ideas—has slightly blurred Palladio’s normally penetrating eye.

S
CULPTURES BY
M
ARC’ANTONIO
B
ARBARO ADORN
P
ALLADIO’S RICH AND MANNERED ENTRANCE TO THE
V
ILLA
B
ARBARO.

 • • • 

A panorama of vineyards and fields spreads out below the villa. On the left, in the distance, is a large stone barn, on the right, some houses. The Villa Godi has a dramatic outlook, but that stolid house perched on its walled bastion is isolated from its setting; the Villa Barbaro embraces its surroundings: the formal garden, a gravel drive leading down to the fountain near the road, and beyond that a long, poplar-lined allée.

Originally, visitors from Venice arrived by the allée, pausing at the Neptune fountain, which is in the center of a sort of forecourt. Here, while watering their horses, they had their first full view of the villa. On the semicircular wall that defines the back of the court still stand the two statues that were the putative household gods of the Villa Barbaro: on the east side Saturn, the patron of agriculture, and on the west the goddess Fortuna with one foot atop a sphere indicating the uncertainty of fate. Progressing up the drive, visitors passed between additional pairs of Olympian deities, arriving at two lions, symbols of St. Mark and the Republic. Alighting from horseback, the travelers climbed several steps to a paved stone terrace where they were
greeted by their welcoming hosts. The terrace is unusual, more than forty feet square, paved in pink and white marble, and bounded on two sides by long stone benches. The Barbaro brothers were enthusiastic patrons of the theater, and it is likely that this was originally a performance space, for which the façade of the house formed a classical backdrop.
¹⁵

The crowd of visitors has thinned out, so I return to the entrance courtyard. An arched opening leads into one end of the arcaded wing. The tall space resembles a long porch and is derived from a traditional Trevigian farm building called a
barchessa. Barchesse
were long barns whose south-facing sides consisted of open arcades providing sunny, protected outdoor areas for unloading wagons and doing farmwork. The custom of combining country houses and
barchesse
was established early in the Trevigiana and can be seen in the nearby Villa Tiretta, built by an unknown architect in 1500.
¹⁶
About forty years later, when Sanmicheli designed the Villa La Soranza at Treville, he adopted the same model of a residential block flanked by two arcaded
barchesse.
La Soranza (now demolished) was a famous villa, “the most beautiful and the most commodious that had been built in those parts up to that time,” according to Vasari.
¹⁷
Treville is only ten miles from Maser, and it is impossible that Palladio, who admired Sanmicheli, did not know about it.

The local pedigree of the Maser arcades is a reminder that Palladio, the famous reviver of the
all’antica
style, was also interested in regional traditions.
¹⁸
But his
barchesse
were unusual. The Sanmicheli’s
barchesse
were barns, places to store animals and farm implements, but at the Villa Barbaro the arcaded wings were an integral part of the house. On the lower floors they contained kitchens, cellars, and service spaces, and on the upper, suites of rooms for the owners. The covered spaces of
barchesse
were traditionally for farm use, but Palladio specifically referred to the Maser arcades as “loggias,” and expected them to be used by the owners “for walking in, eating in, and other pastimes.”
¹⁹
On the other hand, the fancy end pavilions contained mundane uses such as stables and rooms for pressing and storing wine, so the Maser arcades had a utilitarian side, too. Palladio was usually careful to articulate the functional elements of his villas, but such distinctions are somewhat obscured at Maser. It is likely that as he struggled to incorporate the demands of his clients and fit his design to the existing
castello,
he had to compromise.

Palladio’s earliest idea for the villa has survived in the form of a proverbial napkin sketch, crudely drawn on the back of a used sheet and obviously intended for his own use, for it includes three impatient scratches made to unclog his pen.
²⁰
The unfinished drawing is the sort of sketch architects make to get the creative juices flowing. Palladio placed a large entrance hall and a monumental staircase inside the old
castello,
adding separate suites of rooms and a
sala
for each brother in the two arms of the
barchesse.
He located a new vaulted loggia in front of the house, which recalls the theatrical loggia in Alvise Cornaro’s garden, and sketched in a large terrace. The germ of the Villa Barbaro plan is already here, and it was refined in a second drawing, made at a later date, in which he eliminated the outdoor room and the grand entrance hall, introduced a cruciform
sala,
and moved the monumental stair to the rear.
²¹
When the house was built, he dispensed with the elaborate stair altogether, substituting two enclosed staircases—a fancy one for family and guests, and a plain one for servants.

The Villa Barbaro would originally have had public reception rooms on the ground floor (which today contains the living room, the dining room, and a study) and the more private
family quarters above. Although the current owners still use the front door, paying visitors enter the villa via an open-air service stair that is located within the arcade. At the top of the stairs, on the landing outside the door, is a box of felt slippers. The box is empty, which means that I have to wait until somebody leaves—an effective method of crowd control.

The Villa Barbaro, which accommodated two households, has two
salas
and no fewer than thirteen rooms, yet it feels unexpectedly intimate. I am standing in one arm of a vaulted, cruciform
sala,
similar to the Pisani
sala
but much smaller and with a proportionately lower ceiling. The old
castello
into which the house was fitted was narrow, so the ends of the cruciform room correspond to the exterior walls and have large windows—French doors, really—surmounted by glazed arches, facing south, west, and east. The abundance of light and view gives the
sala
a cheerful domestic feeling.

Behind me is an arched doorway leading to a room that is called the
Salone.
The
Salone
is the “head” of this figural plan whose “body” is the
casa del padrone
and whose “arms” are the
barchesse.
Square with a tall vaulted ceiling, this is, in effect, a second
sala,
providing access to the rear terrace garden and to suites of rooms on each side: Daniele in the east wing, Marc’antonio and his family in the west. The suites are closed to the public, but one can look inside the spacious chambers through a glass door. The inviting room is furnished as a study. The focus of the view from the
Salone
and its adjoining rooms is the nymphaeum, a hemicyclical garden structure with niches containing yet more statues of Olympian gods. In the center is a grotto whence rises the spring that feeds the elaborate water system. Two jets of water spout from the breasts of a nymph that stands above the pediment and splash into a semicircular pool—the “fishpond”—next to a stone terrace enclosed by tall conifers. Despite the
clumsiness of some of Marc’antonio’s sculptures, the effect is magical.