Exterior view

Up to 1556 Palladio produced three basic palace types. The first, in 1550, was the Palazzo Chiericati, in which he extended his Palazzo Civena forum idea of a block with its axis parallel to the pavement, which it envelops in a loggia, or roofed open gallery. The tripartite division of the colonnaded elevation, which gives the building a definite central focus, was an innovation.

The second, in 1552, was seen in the Palazzo Iseppo Porto, Vicenza, in which he stated in its clearest form his reconstruction of a Roman house. The fa�ade was closely based on the Roman Renaissance palace type, such as Bramante’s House of Raphael (c. 1514), which Palladio had drawn in Rome. But it was planned in what Palladio believed to be the ancient Roman style. Two tetrastyle halls with four columns each were placed on opposite sides of a court surrounded by a giant colonnade of Corinthian columns.

The third, in 1556, was in the Palazzo Antonini in Udine, which has a square plan with a central four-column tetrastyle hall and the service quarters asymmetrically to one side. The fa�ade has six columns, which are attached to the wall rather than freestanding and which are centrally placed on each of the two floors, surmounted by a pediment or a low-pitched gable - a device normally used in his villas.

The beginning of construction on the Palazzo Antonini dates to 1556. The patron was Floriano Antonini, a young and ambitious member of one of the most high-profile families of Udine aristocracy. In 1559 the palace was already partially inhabitable, but in 1563 building works were still in progress.

Palladio’s project opens the section in the Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570) dedicated to city palaces although the Palazzo Antonini was actually a rather ambivalent building: it is truly an urban palace which assumes the typology of a suburban villa. In this respect, one must bear in mind that the palace rose on the borders of the urban centre, in an open area with gardens, just like the Palazzo Chiericati or the Palazzo Civena.

The design of its fa�ades facing the street incorporates engaged Ionic half-columns, fashioned from blocks of stone. A thick web of openings transforms the loggia onto the street into a sort of diaphragm transparent to the light. The entire edifice seems to be strapped by continuous bands of stone, from the plinth of engaged columns to the entablature, right up to the band corresponding to the upper frieze, where the small unframed windows of the granary open.

View the ground plan of Palazzo Antonini.