of pioneering architects of his own period, including Giulio Romano, Giovanni Maria Falconetto, Sebastiano Serlio and Michele Sanmicheli. Under Trissino's sponsorship, he received further introduction to classical Roman works and to early Renaissance works in Padua and Venice (1538-1539) and a visit to Rome (1541) (PalladioÆs Life, 2003).
As of 1538, aided by his mentor Trissino's influence, PalladioÆs workshop had begun construction of Villa Godi, the first of a series of country villas and urban palaces designed by Palladio in the following years for patrons among the provincial nobility of Vicenza (Gardner, 1952; Raeburn, 1988; PalladioÆs life, 2003).
Ten years later, the architect began to receive commissions for country villas from prominent and wealthy leaders of the nobility of Venice itself, such as Daniele and Marc 'Antonio Barbaro and Giorgio Cornaro. The wealth and aspirations of these new patrons evoked from Palladio a series of grand and innovative creations of his middle period upon which his influence on all later We
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