Villa La Rotonda Site Features

Four identical fronts

Walk the full circuit of the exterior. The building presents the same face in every direction, which is disorientating in a way photographs never convey.

The domed hall

The circular central room, frescoed by Alessandro Maganza and others, with the dome opening into painted sky.

The view out

From any of the four porticoes the Veneto plain and the Colli Berici lie open. The house was designed around this and it still works.

The descendants

Chiswick House, Monticello, the Villa Foscari lineage -- once you have seen this, you begin recognising it everywhere.