VINCENZO SCAMOZZI, one of the most successful and prolific architects
of Venice and the Veneto, will never escape from the shadow of his mentor
Andrea Palladio, who was the most influential
architect in Western history. Yet Scamozzi, himself the son of architect
Giandomenico Scamozzi (1526-82), was a theorist and practitioner of great
accomplishment.
Thanks to Scamozzi,
many of the structures designed by Palladio but not completed by the
time of his death in 1580 were faithfully executed. Examples include
the Teatro Olimpico and La Rotonda at Vicenza and Villa
Cornaro at Piombino Dese. Other commissions for the Cornaro family
included completed villas at Poisolo and
Paradiso in the Castelfranco area and an
ambitious but never constructed palazzo on the Grand Canal in the parish
of S. Maurizio, adjacent to the magnificent Ca'
Cornaro della Ca' Granda designed by Jacopo
Sansovino.
Scamozzi's most
prominent contribution to the landscape of Venice itself is the Procuratie
Nuove, 1582, which comprises the south side of Piazza di S. Marco. He
also supervised completion of the Sansovino-designed
Biblioteca Marciana in the adjoining piazzetta. On the Grand Canal he
is represented by Ca' Contarini degli Scrigni, 1609. In the countryside,
his villa known as La Rocca, 1576, challenges even the masterworks of
Palladio.
In 1615 Scamozzi
collected his architectural theories in his treatise L'Idea dell'Architettura
Universale [The Idea of Universal Architecture].
