Villa Gazzotti Grimani and Villa Pojana

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Villa Gazzotti Grimani

   Palladio is the reason most people know the Veneto's villas, and this was one of his first. Villa Gazzotti Grimani stands at Bertesina, just west of Vicenza on the edge of the flat plain, and dates from the early 1540s, when Andrea Palladio was still a stonemason's apprentice turned architect, not yet the man whose Four Books would shape buildings from Virginia to St Petersburg. It was designed for the Gazzotti family and later passed to the Grimani, whose name remained attached. The plan is bold: a centre block with a loggia stacked above a loggia, and a pair of wings that were meant to curve forward but were never completed.

   Read the complete Villa Gazzotti Grimani write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa Gazzotti Grimani is where the day begins. Next is Villa Trissino.

2. 2. Villa Trissino

   A Palladio villa that was never finished can be more interesting than one that was. At Meledo, a hamlet in the municipality of Sarego south of Vicenza, Andrea Palladio drew up grand plans for the Trissino brothers in the mid-sixteenth century: a central block topped by a dome, with long curved colonnades stretching out like arms toward the river. Only a fragment was built, and what you see today is a modest farm building and some remains incorporated into later structures. Yet the design, published in Palladio's Four Books of Architecture, became one of his most influential, and the site is part of the UNESCO listing of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.

   Read the complete Villa Trissino write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa Trissino comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Pojana.

3. 3. Villa Pojana

   Andrea Palladio could make a farmhouse look like a temple, and at Villa Pojana he did it with remarkable restraint. Built in the mid-sixteenth century for Bonifacio Pojana, a nobleman with military ambitions, the villa stands in the village of Poiana Maggiore in the flat country south of Vicenza. Its facade is almost bare: a great arched entrance framed by a Serlian motif with round windows, a pediment above, smooth plaster walls. The interior has frescoes by artists of the time. Like other Palladian villas of the Veneto, it counts as one component of UNESCO's inscription of the city of Vicenza and the villas around it.

   Read the complete Villa Pojana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 48 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Pojana. Next is back through Villa Trissino.

4. 4. back through Villa Trissino

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Trissino write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Villa Trissino, late in the day. Next is Villa Gazzotti Grimani.

5. 5. Villa Gazzotti Grimani

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Gazzotti Grimani write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Villa Gazzotti Grimani. That is the ride.