Project XXII-XXIII (fols. 21v-23r)
The drawings on fol.23r are erroneously labelled as Project
XXXIII.
This is a 'variant' of the preceding project, with some concessions on
the plan to French taste, even though the whole is framed by the most classical
and Italian symmetry. The centralised square plan is replaced by a deep
rectangular one, articulated round the setting forward of the circular internal
courtyard and along the three axes
p.72
of rooms going to the back of the building (that is, the two runs
of apartments at the sides and a central axis of atria of different lengths
which is of such importance to the author that he gives the longitudinal
section). This is a scheme which is found frequently in Palladio.
The elevation of the façade - even more than the preceding project - is
evocative of Michelangelo's designs for S. Lorenzo, above all in the two bare
and severe corner blocks terminating the building with aedicules. The lower
portico is copied straight from the front portico of Palazzo del Te, and my
remarks on Project XII concerning arches on paired columns with architraves are
confirmed here. Giulio Romano's model is repeated in its entirety, that is in
tetrastyle blocks and not simply in groups of paired columns. Furthermore, such
an arrangement fits its application here, not to a long portico with a prevalent
two-dimensional rhythm but to quite a deep (the ratio is 1:8, including the
large niches at the sides), cross-vaulted atrium, also supporting two storeys of
solid wall.
This debt to Giulio Romano is also perceptible in the villa's most
original motif, the rear cryptoportico supporting a terrace. The exemplar is
without doubt the substructures of Villa Madama illustrated in Book IV but there
is also a clear reference to the lower storey of the 'Cortile della Cavalerizza'
of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. Even the apparently unimportant detail of the
keystone which is 'falling', thus breaking the profile of the arches, is a clear
homage to the anticlassicism of Giulio Romano. The same motif (with its
strikingly heretical feel, particularly with reference to the pretended static
nature of the building) appears again in the Villa dei Vescovi in Luvigliano by
Falconetto. I noted in chapter II that this crytoportico is more or less
contemporary with, if not anterior to, De l'Orme's analogous solution on the
rear of the corps-de-logis at Anet, started in 1547, although De l'Orme's
is richer in its formal inspiration.
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