Discover Villa Emo

The composition is a single long axis: a central residential block, two arcaded barchesse running out from it, and a dovecote tower closing each end.

The ramp up to the portico is the building's most instructive feature. Palladio used a ramp rather than steps because carts had to reach the threshing floor in front of the house -- so the ceremonial approach and the harvest route are the same thing.

The barchesse are plain arcades, deliberately simpler than the centre, and they did real work: grain storage, cart sheds, stabling.

The central block is restrained -- a Doric portico with a pediment, and almost no ornament outside it. The hierarchy between the parts is the whole design.

Inside, Zelotti's frescoes cover the walls of the main rooms with mythological subjects, and are unusually complete for a villa of this date.