Things to See in Vicenza | 2 Monuments & Landmarks

All the monuments in Vicenza

The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.

Palladio's Rotonda showing two of its four temple fronts at dusk

Villa Almerico Capra detta La RotondaUNESCOVilla La RotondaFour identical porticoes, central dome inspired by the Pantheon, template for villas and capitols worldwidePaolo Almerico, a papal clerk retiring to his native Vicenza, commissioned this villa in 1565 not as a working farmhouse but, unusually for its time, as a pure country retreat with no agricultural estate attached, and Andrea Palladio answered with a design that borrowed its dome and portico directly from the Pantheon in Rome. Four identical porticoed facades face the four points of the compass from a domed central hall, treating every approach as equally important rather than favoring a single grand front, a symmetry Palladio never repeated at this scale. Construction dragged on past Almerico's death, and the Capra brothers, who bought the unfinished property in 1592, completed it and gave the villa the alternate name Villa Capra by which it is also known. Its influence proved vast: Thomas Jefferson studied it in planning Monticello, and versions of its dome-on-cube formula turned up on capitols, banks and country houses across Europe and the Americas for the next three centuries.Plan the visit

TheatreUNESCOTeatro OlimpicoPalladio's last work, oldest surviving stage set, forced-perspective streets of ThebesAndrea Palladio drew the plans for Europe's oldest surviving indoor theatre in 1580 and died a few months later, so Vincenzo Scamozzi finished the job. His masterstroke is the stage: seven streets of Thebes in forced perspective, built in wood and plaster for the opening performance of Oedipus Rex in March 1585 and never taken down. It is the oldest surviving stage set in the world. Sit in the tiered semi-ellipse of the cavea, under a painted sky, and the little streets seem to run for blocks, though the whole set is only a few meters deep. A short light and sound show brings the scene to life.

The Vicenza guide

More within reach

Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Veneto.