45°26′30″N10°59′42″E / 45.44167°N 10.99500°E /45.44167; 10.99500
Palazzo Dalla Torre is a patricianpalace inVerona, northernItaly, designed by Italian Renaissance architectAndrea Palladio for Giambattista Dalla Torre. Thepalazzo was probably built from 1555, but remained unfinished. Allied bombardment in 1945 demolished a great part of the building. However, conspicuous remains of Palladio’s construction survive: the majestic access portal and acourtyard withcolumns andentablature.
Palladio’s only work in the city of Verona, Palazzo Dalla Torre is somewhat of a mystery. If the dating is uncertain (the majority of scholars dates the beginning of construction to 1555), equally vague is our knowledge of the building’s actual form. This was only partially executed and can be reconstructed, therefore, only from the plate in theI quattro libri dell'architettura (1570), in this case particularly unfaithful.
There are no doubts, however, about the identity of the patron, Giambattista Dalla Torre. Tied by familial bonds to theVicentineValmarana and MarcantonioThiene (who commissioned his family palace from Palladio,Palazzo Thiene), he was a friend ofintellectuals and artists; above allGiangiorgio Trissino, but also the great geographerGiambattista Ramusio, the doctorGiovanni Fracastoro and the architectMichele Sanmicheli.
