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| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Vicenza,Veneto, Italy |
| Part of | City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto |
| Criteria | Cultural: (i)(ii) |
| Reference | 712bis-001 |
| Inscription | 1994 (18thSession) |
| Coordinates | 45°32′36″N11°32′45″E / 45.54333°N 11.54583°E /45.54333; 11.54583 |
  Location of Palazzo Civena in Veneto  Palazzo Civena (Italy) Show map of Italy | |
Palazzo Civena is a Renaissance palace inVicenza, Italy, dating to 1540. It was the firstpalace designed byAndrea Palladio for Giovanni Civena.[1]
The date "1540" engraved on the foundation medal, preserved in the Museo Civico di Vicenza, fixes the laying of thefoundation stone to that year. The building was probably finished twenty-four months later, six months before the start of works on thePalazzo Thiene. The history of the palace includes being heavily modified by Domenico Cerato in 1750, being half destroyed by Allied bombardment duringWorld War II (with the Teatro Eretenio at his side) and thence reconstructed only for itsfaçade.
Palazzo Civena was not included in theQuattro Libri dell'Architettura by Palladio (1570), but various autograph drawings by Palladio exist to document the several alternatives he elaborated during the design stage.
According to Douglas Lewis, the curator of the 1981 exhibitionThe Drawings of Palladio, the design "was a rather safe job which borrowed motifs from other architects, the kind of thing a young architect will do to win a patron's confidence."[1]
Today's distribution of internal spaces does not replicate Palladio's definitive idea but is the fruit of Cerato's heavy interventions, which prolonged theatrium and modified the stairs. The original plan, however, may be reconstructed thanks to a 19th-century survey published in 1776 by Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi (according to whom it was obtained from the proprietors): the grouping of rooms in two nuclei placed to either side of the atrium, with aserliana providing the filter to the exterior, is very close toPalladio's villa projects in the same years.
The very early date of the project makes Palazzo Civena evidence of Palladio's youthful activity and his architectural culture before the journey toRome in 1541. As was already the case with thevilla at Cricoli, this building marks a rupture with constructional praxis in Vicenza: the traditionalpolifora at the centre of the façade has been substituted with a regular sequence of bays, rhythmically articulated by pairedpilasters. In this respect Palladio was evidently inspired by the Roman palaces of the early 16th-century (Cinquecento), but it is clear that this did not result from direct acquaintance: the building's façade is devoid of any real plastic substance and seems[according to whom?] cut from a sheet of paper. Moreover, all the elements of his architectural vocabulary derive fromVenetian models, not Roman ones, above all the buildings realised byGiovanni Maria Falconetto inPadua.
Media related toPalazzo Civena (Vicenza) at Wikimedia Commons
