Villa Poiana

via Castello 43, Poiana Maggiore, Vicenza
tel. +39 0444 898554
fax +39 0444 898554
e-mail: info@villapoiana.it
web: www.villapoiana.it

Open to the public:
Wednesday to Friday
10.00 am – 1.00 pm / 2.00 – 6.00 pm
Saturdays and Sundays 10.00 am – 6.00 pm

Winter period: by appointment only

Groups (min 15 people) by appointment only

The villa was commissioned by the Vicentine Bonifacio Poiana. Palladio probably designed the villa towards the end of the 1540s and construction work was completed by 1563, when the internal decoration was completed by the painters Bernardino India and Anselmo Canera, and the sculptor Bartolomeo Ridolfi.
In both the Quattro Libri and Palladio's autograph drawings, the villa is considered part of an overall plan to reorganise and regularize the area around large pre-existing courtyards. However, only the barchessa to the left of the villa (with Doric capitals and Tuscan intercolumniation) was built according to this project.
It seems here that Palladio was attempting to emulate the utilitarian logic of the architecture typical of thermal baths in classical times, through the use of an architectural ‘language’ that appears to be an extraordinary synthesis of forms, quite abstract and almost ‘metaphysical’. The absence of orders and parts in worked stone (excluding the portals of the loggia) must have ensured considerable savings in the implementation of this project.