Palladian villas of the Veneto

By 1550, Palladio had produced a group of villas, whose scale and decoration can be seen as closely matching the wealth and social standing of the owners: the powerful and very rich Pisani family, bankers and Venetian patricians, had huge vaults and a loggia façade realised with stone piers and rusticated Doric pilasters; in his villa at Bertesina, the (briefly) wealthy minor noble and salt-tax farmer Taddeo Gazzotti had pilasters executed in brick, though the capitals and bases were carved in stone; Biagio Saraceno at Villa Saraceno had a loggia with three arched bays, but without any architectural order.

Something smaller, often with only one main living floor was adequate as a centre for controlling the productive activity from which much of the owner's income probably derived and for impressing tenants and neighbours as well as entertaining important guests.

These residences, though sometimes smaller than earlier villas, were just as effective for establishing a social and political presence in the countryside, and for relaxing, hunting, and getting away from the city, which was always potentially unhealthy.

Kitchens, store-rooms, laundries and cellars were in the low ground floor; the ample space under the roof was used to store the most valuable product of the estate, grain, which incidentally also served to insulate the living rooms below.

Villas, despite their unfortified appearance and their open loggie were still direct descendants of castles, and were surrounded by a walled enclosure, which gave them some necessary protection from bandits and marauders.

The enclosure (cortivo) contained barns, dovecote towers, bread ovens, chicken sheds, stables, accommodation for factors and domestic servants, places to make cheese, press grapes, etc.

Orientation was also important: Palladio states in I quattro libri dell'architettura that barns should face south so as to keep the hay dry, thus preventing it from fermenting and burning.

Palladio found inspiration in large antique complexes which either resembled country houses surrounded by their outbuildings or which he actually considered residential layouts – an example is the temple of Hercules Victor at Tivoli, which he had surveyed.

It is clear, for instance, that the curving barns which flank the majestic façade of the Villa Badoer were suggested by what was visible of the Forum of Augustus.