Piazza dei Signori Site Features

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.

The Basilica's loggia

Best read from the far side of the square, where the full run of arches is visible at once.

The two columns

The winged lion of St Mark and Christ the Redeemer, marking Vicenza's four centuries as a Venetian city.

The Torre Bissara

The medieval bell tower rising through the Basilica's corner, older than everything around it and left in place when Palladio built round it.

The Palazzo del Capitaniato

Three bays of an unfinished facade, and the clearest evidence anywhere of how far Palladio's style travelled within his own lifetime.