Basilica Palladiana Historical Timeline

Origins

The Palazzo della Ragione, Vicenza's communal law court and council hall, was built in the fifteenth century with an outer gallery on two sides. Parts of that gallery collapsed in the 1490s, and the building sat propped and unresolved for fifty years.

Turning points

Some of the most eminent architects in Italy submitted proposals -- Sansovino, Serlio, Sanmicheli, Giulio Romano among them -- and none was built. In 1549 the commission went instead to a local stonemason-turned-architect in his early forties. It was Palladio's first major public work.

Influential people

He called it a basilica in the Roman sense, a hall of public business, and said so explicitly in I quattro libri -- part of a lifelong argument that classical antiquity was a working model rather than decoration.

Cultural evolution

Construction ran from 1549 until 1614, more than thirty years after Palladio's death, and was completed to his design. By then the building was already being copied.

Present-day significance

Allied bombing in March 1945 destroyed the roof and much of the interior; the copper-clad hull was rebuilt in the following decade. The Basilica now hosts major exhibitions and is the centrepiece of Vicenza's UNESCO inscription.