Vicenza
The city of Vicenza is between Venice and Verona but is much smaller and only has about 120,000 residents. It shares a similar history with its nearby sister cities, and was ruled by (and thus shares the same stories as) Venice beginning in 1404. Today, the United States Army keeps a post here known as Caserma Ederle (“Camp Ederle”), which is the headquarters of the Southern European Task Force and the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Most tourists who visit Vicenza arrive with at least a cursory knowledge of architecture and a desire to see the buildings Padua native Andrea Palladio designed in the 1500s. The movement known as Palladian Architecture was named for him, which consists of designs based on the symmetry and perspective of formal classical temples by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The style is known well beyond Italy, and designers in England and the United States have embraced it over the centuries.
Essential
If you want to have good luck in love and in life, then join the thousands of people who walk up to the bronze statue of Juliet at Casa di Giulietta and rub her right breast. Doing so is said to be lucky.
Villa Capra
Palladio designed this Renaissance villa — also known as “La Rotonda” — for a priest who retired from the Vatican and decided to build a home in the Venetian countryside in 1565. Palladio died in 1580 before the villa was complete, but the design is associated with him today nonetheless. The interior is as magnificent, if not more so, than the exterior, with a domed room that is reminiscent of fresco-dominated cathedrals.
Villa Capra is still a private home, owned by a former professor of architecture at the University of Virginia. It's open to the public for interior tours only on Wednesdays, and the exterior gardens are open daily.
Fact
President Thomas Jefferson's self-designed Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia, is based on Palladian architecture that Jefferson saw while traveling in Europe during the late 1700s. Jefferson's architectural designs for the University of Virginia were also based on Palladio's work.
Basilica Palladiana
This building is located in Vicenza's central Piazza dei Signori and features one of the earliest examples of what came to be known as a Palladian window. Though Palladio didn't invent the arched design, he did use it extensively in his structures. There's a large hall inside the basilica that is used today for exhibitions and events.
Teatro Olimpico
Palladio's last work was this theater, which is widely considered the first covered theater of modern times. It is the oldest surviving example of a Renaissance theater, and the architect himself never got to see it completed; he died just six months after construction began. It is still used for productions today, though only in the spring and fall because there is no heat or air conditioning inside. If you want to see whether a production is planned during your travel dates, visit the theater's official website,
Palazzo Chiericati
This palace is currently the home of Vicenza's museum and art gallery. Most of the artworks inside are by local artists, as opposed to the masters whose works you can see in the region's basilicas.
