Villa Chiericati, Vancimuglio, Italy

Villa Chiericati was designed for Giovanni Chiericati by the architect Andrea Palladio in the early 1550s. In 1996 UNESCO included the villa in the World Heritage Site City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.

The villa is square and a portico projects from its principal facade. The principal rooms are built upon a piano nobile above a semi-basement. The upper floor is very much of secondary importance. The design of the villa was to be the prototype for Palladio's later works at the Villa Rotonda and the Villa Malcontenta.

Work on the villa stopped after the death of Palladio's client. It was not finally completed until after it had been purchased by Ludovico Porto in 1574. In 1584 he employed the architect Domenico Groppino, who had collaborated with Palladio on other projects, to complete the villa.There is some debate as to the extent Groppino influenced the eventual design of the building. While the portico is undoubtedly by the hand of Palladio himself, the position of the windows is at variance with the architect's own advice in I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, where he warns against placing windows near the corner of a building lest it weaken the structure (the villa does in fact reveal signs of settlement here).

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User Reviews

Francesca Piarulli (2 years ago)
Beautiful but closed the gate and the impression of abandonment

Mark R Davis (2 years ago)
Abandoned and in ruins. Private road from the state road but you can park from the church in front then approach it on foot.

Manuel Mondardo (2 years ago)
Beautiful historic villa

michele dainese (2 years ago)
Beautiful, fresh inside, it is a pity that the ignorance of the manager in charge of the superintendency of the fine arts of Verona prohibits external cleaning for fear of compromising the stability of the building: a shameful thing!

Claudio Santacroce (2 years ago)
It happened, some time ago, to pass near this splendid patrician residence in that of Vancimuglio, a hamlet of Grumolo delle Abbadesse. The architecture is that of the great Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, the "Palladio", as his noble mentor, the writer and refined esthete Gian Giorgio Trissino called him. Paradoxically, Andrea Palladio was born in Padua, but already a boy with his parents he moved to Vicenza, to which he has forever linked his name. The photos published here make the beauty of this Villa of the noble Chiericati family from Vicenza perfectly well (whose "Reggia", designed by Palladio himself and remained unfinished, is right in the center of Vicenza, overlooking the gardens of Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, unless of a stone's throw from the Olympic Theater, another masterpiece by Andrea da Padova. Without detracting from the beauty of the other photos posted here, I cannot but express my special appreciation for the one taken and posted by Mr. Mattia Fiore. A particular angle, with the Villa immersed in a decidedly "summer" situation Unfortunately, as Mr. Fiore rightly points out, this magnificent monument, which is included in the Official List of Venetian Villas, is in a situation of melancholy abandonment.

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