Exterior view

The Villa Pisani was designed by Palladio about 1552, for Cardinal Francesco Pisani. Unlike more typical Palladian villas - and their imitations in Britain, Germany and the United States - the Villa Pisani at Montagnana combines an urban front, facing a piazza of the comune, and, on the other side, a rural frontage extending into gardens, with an agricultural setting beyond.

Unlike many of Palladio’s villas in purely rural settings, it has an upper storey, set apart from more public reception rooms on the main floor; twin suites of apartments are accessed by twin oval staircases that flank the central recess on the garden side. On the exterior, little differentiation between floors is made: there is no obviously visible piano nobile. On the garden front, access to the park is from the central recessed portico only; a balustrade above a deep ditch keeps out informal wanderers.

The doubling of the piano nobile, apparent from the superimposition of storeys in the porticos, is seen in Palladio’s design for the Villa Pisani. Here he made use of an atrium with four columns, a main theme of his understanding of Vitruvius.

The photo shows the garden fa�ade.

View the original plan of Villa Pisani, Montagnana (partially executed).