C. Palladio's father was a miller who settled in did a humble miller's son become a world renowned
architect? The answer in the exhibition is that, as a young man, Palladio excelled at carving decorative
stonework on columns, doorways and fireplaces. He was plainly intelligent, and lucky enough to come
across a rich patron, Gian Giorgio Trissino, a landowner and scholar, who organised his education, taking
him to Rome in the 1540s, where he studied the masterpieces of classical Roman and Greek architecture and
the work of other influential architects of the time, such as Donato Bramante and Raphael.
D. Burns argues that social mobility was also important. Entrepreneurs, prosperous from agriculture
in the Veneto, commissioned the promising local architect to design their country villas and their urban
mansions. In Venice the aristocracy were anxious to co-opt talented artists, and Palladio was given the
chance to design the buildings that have made him famous— the churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and the
Redentore, both easy to admire because they can be seen from the city's historical centre across a stretch of
water.
E. He tried his hand at bridges—his unbuilt version of the Rialto Bridge was decorated with the large
pediment and columns of a temple —and, after a fire at the Ducal Palace, he offered an alternative design
which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. Since it was
designed by Inigo Jones, Palladio's first foreign disciple, this is not as surprising as it sounds.
F. Jones, who visited Italy in 1614, bought a trunk full of the master's architectural drawings; they
passed through the hands of the Dukes of Burlington and Devonshire before settling at the Royal Institute of
British Architects in 1894. Many are now on display at Palazzo Barbaran. What they show is how Palladio
drew on the buildings of ancient Rome as models. The major theme of both his rural and urban building was
temple architecture, with a strong pointed pediment supported by columns and approached by wide steps.