[1] For, tradition holds that right here, in the second half of the 1530s, the Vicentine noble Giangiorgio Trissino (1478–1550) met the young mason Andrea di Pietro at work on the building of his villa.

Somehow intuiting the youth’s potential and talent, Trissino took charge of his future formation, introduced him into the Vicentine aristocracy and, in the space of a few years, transformed him into the architect who bore the aulic name of Palladio.

Trissino did not demolish the pre-existing building, but redesigned it to give priority to the principal facade facing south.

This gesture was a sort of manifesto of membership in the new constructional culture based on the rediscovery of ancient Roman architecture.

Trissino reorganised the spaces into a sequence of lateral rooms, which differ in dimensions but are linked by a system of inter-related proportions (1:1; 2:3; 1:2), a matrix which would become a key theme in Palladio’s design method.