Villa Cornaro site features

The front carries a two-storey projecting portico — Ionic below, Corinthian above — standing clear of the wall behind it. Palladio had used temple fronts before and would again, but a double loggia projecting from the façade like this was new, and it is the single reason the villa is cited as often as it is.

The idea travelled further than the building ever could. The Quattro Libri plates were studied by British architects and then by American ones, and the two-tier portico of the Anglo-American country house descends from designs like this one.

Inside, the main hall is a four-column room running the depth of the house, with Mariani's statues set against the walls — a Roman atrium reinterpreted as the social centre of a working estate.