Villa Porto was designed in 1554 and traditionally attributed to the Italian architect Andrea Palladio, but not included by UNESCO in the strict list of Palladian Villas of Veneto
In 1554, Paolo Porto and his brothers divided up their father’s inheritance, Paolo acquiring an estate at Vivaro, north of Vicenza. Here, during the subsequent four years, he realised a villa which tradition holds was designed by Palladio. The Conte Paolo Porto, one of the most powerful canons of the Cathedral (in 1550 he was on the point of becoming bishop) was a sophisticated and cultured man, who passed much time in Rome where he could count on the friendship of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Porto also numbered among his Vicentine friends and relatives Palladio’s foremost patrons, men like Giangiorgio Trissino, Biagio Saraceno, Bernardo Schio, and Girolamo Garzadori.
It is perhaps this network of friendships which most easily placed him in contact with Palladio, although in this regard careful inspection of the villa’s architecture raises more doubts than certainties. For one discerns various successive constructional phases, which render the identification of an original Palladian scheme, if any, most difficult. The pronaos, for example, is grafted onto the main block with manifest discontinuity. Moreover, the two lateral wings are without doubt nineteenth-century, and actually the product of a belated “Palladianization” of the villa at the hands of the architect Antonio Caregaro Negrin.
References:The Broch of Clickimin is a large and well preserved, though somewhat restored broch near Lerwick. Originally built on an island in Clickimin Loch (now increased in size by silting and drainage), it was approached by a stone causeway. The water-level in the loch was reduced in 1874, leaving the broch high and dry. The broch is situated within a walled enclosure and, unusually for brochs, features a large 'blockhouse' between the opening in the enclosure and the broch itself. Another unusual feature is a stone slab featuring sculptured footprints, located in the causeway which approached the site. Situated across the loch is the Clickimin Leisure Centre.