Discover Villa Godi Malinverni

The facade is the point. A deep recessed loggia occupies the centre, flanked by two solid blocks that step forward — the opposite arrangement to the projecting porticoes Palladio would later make his signature. The wall is plain, the openings are cut straight into it, and there is no order applied anywhere on the front.

Palladio was working here from the local building tradition rather than from Rome, which he had not yet visited when the design was made. The result is closer to a fortified Vicentine country house than to a temple.

The plan is nonetheless already his: a symmetrical block with a central hall running front to back and rooms of graded size either side of it, the arrangement he would refine for the next forty years.

Inside, the fresco cycles cover whole rooms — architectural illusion, landscape and figures — and are the reason the interior is worth the ticket rather than just the exterior worth the stop.