Discover Piazza dei Signori

The square is a long rectangle rather than a regular piazza, shaped by the buildings that grew along it rather than by a plan.

The Basilica Palladiana dominates it: two storeys of white stone loggia, Doric below and Ionic above, running the full length of one side. Its repeated arch-and-columns module -- the serliana, now called the Palladian motif -- was chosen because it could stretch or shrink to absorb the crooked medieval bays behind it.

Opposite stands the Palazzo del Capitaniato, dense with half-columns and stucco reliefs celebrating the victory at Lepanto. Placed face to face, the two show Palladio thirty years apart: the light, repeating loggia of the young architect and the crowded, muscular facade of the old one.