Palladio and Britain - architeria.eu

RIBA LAUNCHES 'PALLADIO AND BRITAIN' WEBSITE TO CELEBRATE 500th BIRTHDAY
OF ANDREA PALLADIO

www.architecture.com/palladio

Website launch: 1 December 2008

On 1 December 2008 the RIBA British Architectural Library will celebrate the 500th birthday of Andrea
Palladio by launching a major online resource: Palladio and Britain. This web-hub will enable users to explore
the RIBA’s unparalleled collection of Palladio’s books and drawings – over 80 percent of those in existence.
As well as viewing Palladio’s design drawings and books, visitors can learn about Palladio’s influence
on British architects from the 16th century to the present day.

Britain’s love affair with Palladio began in the early 17th century when Inigo Jones brought to England
a large collection of his drawings. Many more were acquired by Lord Burlington who also bought Jones’s
collection and who in turn left these to the Duke of Devonshire. In 1894, the drawings were given to
the RIBA by the Duke of Devonshire as a gift in trust. The RIBA Library is now home to over 330
of Palladio’s drawings. These drawings are greater in number than for all other Italian Renaissance
architects put together.

Visitors to the site will be able to feast their eyes on Palladio’s own design drawings for villas, palaces
and churches, preliminary drawings for woodcuts in his seminal work I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura,
and drawings and reconstructions of Roman buildings. They can explore British Palladian villas, interiors
and elegant country houses through the outstanding collection of photographs held in the RIBA
Photographs Collection. Visitors can also browse the Library’s collection of early books, drawings
and archives and find out how and why writers, artists, architects and patrons have been captivated
by Palladio through the centuries.

Sunand Prasad, RIBA President says:

“Andrea Palladio’s buildings and drawings supremely exemplify the practice of architecture as a compositional
art. 500 years later his three dimensional imagination, organisational rigour and mastery of scale and
proportion inspire us and set standards that transcend architectural style. The RIBA is fortunate that British
architects were amongst the first to recognise the quality of his drawings and, in the conviction that
Palladio’s relevance will last and last, we will continue to make these treasures available for study
and pleasure as widely as possible.”

Charles Hind, the RIBA’s H.J. Heinz Curator of Drawings says:

‘The RIBA’s collection of Palladio’s drawings is a treasure trove of international importance. Their purchase
by two Englishmen, a century apart, saved them from destruction and their constant use as a reference
by generations of architects have reinforced Palladio’s supreme position in Western architecture.’

The exhibition ‘Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy’, currently open in Vicenza, will open in London
on 31 January 2009 at the Royal Academy of Arts.

With thanks to the generous support of the Italian Cultural Institute.

Andrea Palladio (1508-80)

Andrea Palladio (1508 – 1580) was born in Padua to a relatively humble background from which he rose
to become the most influential western architect in history. He is famous for both his buildings and books,
above all I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura [the Four Books of Architecture].

Most of his career was based in and around the city of Vicenza. It was here that he was apprenticed
as a stone mason, where he learnt to handle materials and understand the practicalities of construction.
It was also here that he met Giangiorgio Trissino, Renaissance scholar and amateur architect.

Trissino took Andrea under his wing. He gave him his first architectural commission, educated him,
and introduced him into polite society. He took him to Rome, and gave him a new name – Palladio.

Travel transformed Palladio’s understanding of architecture. In Rome he observed and sketched ancient
Roman ruins and buildings. He also journeyed throughout Italy, Provence and Croatia, studying
and drawing wherever he went.

Palladio’s understanding of architecture was developed further by extensive reading. He was particularly
influenced by Vitruvius’s De Architectura, the only architectural treatise to survive from antiquity,
and fifteenth and sixteenth-century writers such as Alberti, Serlio and Vignola.

As a result of this study, Palladio’s career took off. He designed many villas and palaces for the noble
families of Vicenza, transforming the city and surrounding countryside. After 1560, he gained commissions
in Venice, notably the great churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore.

His reputation was cemented by the publication of the I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570). A landmark
in book design, it was the first time an architect published his own works.

Palladio died in 1580, leaving an outstanding legacy, built and in print. Stylistically, his understated manner
became a central tenet of Georgian architecture. The classic 18th century English country house is
a direct heir of his pioneering work, notably his villas, from where it was exported far and wide,
to the United States.


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CREDITS:
Text: The Royal Institute of British Architects