provinces that led to capital being invested heavily in land rather than in mercantile activities. Thus, Palladio enjoyed in his prime a unique opportunity to design and build numerous public and private structures for the Venetian merchants and nobles.
Palladio was apprenticed to a stonecutter in Padua when he was 13 years old. He broke this contract, agreed to by his father, after only 18 months and fled to the nearby town of Vicenza. In Vicenza he became an assistant in the leading workshop of stonecutters and masons where he learned the rudiments of architectural design (PalladioÆs Life, 2003).
His life was transformed in 1537, when he was 30 years old. At that time he was engaged by Gian Giorgio Trissino, one of the period's leading scholars, to assist in executing new additions which Trissino had designed for his own villa at Cricoli just outside Vicenza (PalladioÆs Life, 2003; Raeburn, 1988). The association affected Andrea in at least three ways:
First, Trissino immediately assumed the role of Andrea's mentor and set about the task of introducing him to the principles of classical architecture and the other disciplines of Renaissance education. Second, Trissino introduced his protTgT to an ever widening circle of patrons, first in Vicenza, then in Padua, and finally in Venice itself. Third, Trissino bestowed upon Andrea the name by which he was to become famous: Palladio. Suggesting Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom, the name was also used by Trissino for an angelic messenger in an epic poem which he composed during the same period (PalladioÆs Life, 2003, p. 1).
By studying the principles of Vitruvius, the classical Roman architect whose treatise had been rediscovered in the prior century, and of the Renaissance commentator, Leon Battista Alberti, Palladio increased his knowledge of the fundamental principles of classical Roman architecture. Personal contact acquainted him with the ideas and works ...