Italian villas and their gardens . greatin his civic architecture rather than in his countryhouses, if his stately genius lent itself rather to thegrouping of large masses than to the construction ofpretty toys, yet his most famous villa is a distinct andoriginal contribution to the chief examples of the Italianpleasure-house. The Villa Capra, better known as theRotonda, which stands on a hill above Vicenza, hasbeen criticized for having four fronts instead of one front,two sides and a back. It is, in fact, a square buildingwith a projecting Ionic portico on each face — a planopen to the charg
Italian villas and their gardens . greatin his civic architecture rather than in his countryhouses, if his stately genius lent itself rather to thegrouping of large masses than to the construction ofpretty toys, yet his most famous villa is a distinct andoriginal contribution to the chief examples of the Italianpleasure-house. The Villa Capra, better known as theRotonda, which stands on a hill above Vicenza, hasbeen criticized for having four fronts instead of one front,two sides and a back. It is, in fact, a square buildingwith a projecting Ionic portico on each face — a planopen to the charge of monotony, but partly justified inthis case by the fact that the house is built on the sum-mit of a knoll from which there are four \iews, allequally pleasing, and each as it were entitled to thedistinction of having a loggia to itself. Still, it is cer-tain that neither in the Rotonda nor in his other villasdid Palladio hit on a style half as appropriate or pleas-ing as the typical manner of the Roman \illa-architects, 246. VILLAS OF VENETIA with its happy minghng of freedom and classicaHsm, itswonderful adaptation to dimate and habits of life, itscapricious grace of detail, and its harmony with thegarden-architecture which was designed to surround it. The Villa Capra has not preserved its old gardens,and at the Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, Palladios otherfamous country house, the grounds have been so mod-ernized and stripped of all their characteristic featuresthat it is difficult to judge of their original design ; butone feels that all Palladios rural architecture lackedthat touch of fancy and freedom which, in the Romanschool, facilitated the transition of manner from thehouse to the garden-pavilion, and from the paviHon tothe half-rustic grotto and the woodland temple. The Villa Valmarana, also at Vicenza, on the MonteBerico, not far from the Rotonda, has something of theintimate charm lacking in the latter. The low andsimply designed house is notable only for the ch
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