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 Who would have thought, when Andrea di Pietro della Gondola followed his father into the stonemasonry industry at the age of thirteen, that one day his nickname would be uttered with respect and admiration by his contemporaries?
The name by which the boy would eventually become known all around the
world would never cease to evoke an enthusiastic response, down through the
centuries... 'Palladio'
His father, apprenticed young Andrea to a stonecutter in Padua, in 1521, but the lad absconded to nearby Vicenza when he was barely fifteen years old, frustrated by the slowness with which he could see his career would progress if he remained. Andrea became an assistant in the main stonecutting and masonry workshop of Vicenza and there appeared to have settled into a lifetime's work but, some fifteen years later, in 1537, whilst he was working for Gian Giorgio
Trissino, assisting with the additions to Trissino's villa at Cricoli, outside
Vicenza, his life took a new direction.
Trissino decided to become Andrea's mentor, taught him the principles of classical architecture, amongst other things, and soon introduced him to a wide circle of influential friends, taking in
Vicenza, Padua and Venice. It was Trissino who gave Andrea his new name 'Palladio', derived from the name of the Greek goddess of wisdom. Trissino also used the name for a message-bearing angel in an epic poem that he wrote during this same period. Andrea, eager to learn and flourish, soaked up all the knowledge and encouragement that came his way.
Within a year, Palladio's own workshop was engaged in building Villa Godi, the first of a series of villas and palaces he was commissioned to design for the provincial nobility.
 By the time he was forty years old,
Palladio was being engaged to build second homes for the high society of
the city of Venice itself, including the Cornaro and Barbaro families, whose wealth and desire for grandeur were all the spurs he needed to give free rein to his lofty ideas as he created country villas to which they might escape from the city in the heat of summer.
Although Palladio did not receive commissions to build any town houses in Venice, by 1560 he had been engaged to build three churches for the city, of which two survive today and a third was demolished to make way for a railway line during the 19th century - a fact that does not bear even thinking about!
Palladio's first published book was a guide to the ruins of ancient Rome - it had taken him so long to discover them all that he probably wished to spare others the same frustrations! Later,
Palladio and his sons collaborated in the publication of a new translation of Caesar's 'Commentaries'.
In another collaborative effort, Palladio drew several illustrations for an annotated edition of the original architectural treatise by Vitruvius that was being created by his friend and client Daniele
Barbaro.
At the age of sixty-two, Palladio published the work that guaranteed he would become a household name in architectural circles, his Four Books of Architecture.
Packed with fundamental principles and practical advice and illustrated with woodcuts drawn from his own works, this masterpiece was soon translated into every European language and read by all who had the slightest interest in architecture. To this day, this major work remains unsurpassed and
is still in print in more than one version.
Apart from his own writings, Palladio has been written about by many scholars and admirers over the centuries since his death at the age of seventy-two, in 1580, in the town of
Vicenza, the home he had adopted at the age of fifteen.
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