Visiting Vicenza (Italy), famous for its Palladian Villas and Tiepolo Paintings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Vicenza (Italy), famous for its Palladian Villas and Tiepolo Paintings with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


My husband Laurent and I went to see architect Andrea Palladio’s (1508 – 1580) Villa Almerico, popularly known as La Rotunda, on a Sunday morning in Vicenza, Italy.

La Rotunda, is made up of four wings on which a central hall has a dome over it.  The façades on the wings have Greek columns on them, making La Rotunda appear to be a small temple on the small hill it stands upon on the outskirts of Vicenza.  However, what distinguishes La Rotunda is Palladio’s use of the dome as an element in domestic architecture.

Witold Rybczynski dates La Rotunda between 1560 – 1570 in his book The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio.  Rybczynski’s book is a wonderful touring guide that might have you identifying Palladian elements in your home town such as those on banks besides using it to appreciate Palladian Villas in Italy.

Palladian influence was wide Rybczynski writes.  For example, in the state of Virginia, the James River Plantation homes owe their colonnaded porches to Palladian inspiration.  Palladio also inspired Thomas Jefferson while building his home of Monticello outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

Visiting La Rotunda was tantalizing, but the villa was closed on Sunday mornings. We had to photograph it through a gate.  We later learned that the interior was open on Wednesday afternoons only.  So, our plan A for the day would not work.

However, this was Italy, so if one villa was closed, another would probably be open.  We walked around the corner to Villa Valmarana.  When we bought our tickets, we discovered that Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 – 1770) had painted scenes from mythology in the main villa and from literature and Venetian popular sources in the guest house.

Laurent had vaguely heard of Tiepolo and asked me more about him.  I told him that Tiepolo usually worked on paintings that looked as if the ceiling had opened up to the sky with angels transporting people to heaven or themselves on billowing, three-dimensional clouds.

In the main villa, Tiepolo used three-dimensional painting to show the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon.  This scene is often thought to be savage and brutal, reflecting the misogyny of Greek culture.  I have always read this Greek myth differently.

Agamemnon belonged to the House of Atreus, which was descended from Tantalus.  The House of Atreus was cursed, and I believed it was for its mistreatment of women.  Families that treat their women well should be blessed.  Perhaps this interpretation explains why this scene of Iphegenia’s sacrifice would show up in a home to remind its inhabitants to treat women well. 

Just the paintings in Villa Valmarana main house make it a destination to visit in Vicenza.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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