1508-1580

Italian Architect

Italian architect Andrea Palladio is one of the most important figures in the history of Western architecture. He initially gained fame for his design of palaces and villas and theories linking current thinking about architecture with classical Roman style. These ideas have been imitated again and again for more than 400 years. Palladio's influence was seen most notably in eighteenth-century America, England, and Italy. While the architect's work stands as a lasting tribute, Palladio's four-volume treatise, I Quattro Libri dell'Architecttura (1570), or Four Books of Architecture, established his enduring reputation worldwide. The collected work was an international bestseller for more than two centuries.

Born Andrea di Pietro in 1508, Palladio was the son of a grain mill worker in Padua, a major city in the Venetian Republic. He apprenticed to a stonemason at 13, but broke his contract three years later and moved to his adopted hometown...