![]() After leaving Padua for Vicenza at the age of 16, he trained as a stonemason, joined a local guild and later became an assistant in the city’s top workshop. Born in Padua in 1508, the son of a miller and a stonemason by trade, Andrea di Pietro della Gondola was discovered almost too late in his life. Palladio was a most unlikely figure to influence world architecture. He is often regarded as the most influential architect in world history. But it wasn’t just the American scene that Palladio influenced. And a number of architectural elements that inform the American residential, commercial, and public landscape are a result of the influence Palladio, among them pediments, porticoes, multipane windows arranged in an arc shape (the Palladian window), and landscaped courtyards. Some of the most prototypical of American buildings – such as Monticello – are steeped in Palladian principles. Thomas Jefferson, President James Madison, and many leading early American architects, among others, were heavily influenced by Palladio, as were great American architectural styles like Georgian, Colonial, and Federal. It is fitting, then, to consider another Italian who, though perhaps less known, may have had more of an impact on American (and perhaps Western) culture – through architecture: Andrea Palladio. ![]() On this Columbus Day, we celebrate Christopher Columbus – and by extension, Italy and Italian culture in the United States. Columbus May Have Discovered America, but Palladio Helped Shaped Its Architecture ![]()
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