Villa Pojana

Title: The Half-Completed Villa Pojana Teaser: A half-finished masterpiece by the master of Renaissance architecture - a Venetian villa that never quite matched Palladio's original vision.

Villa Pojana, also known as Poiana, is a patrician villa in Pojana Maggiore, a town in the province of Vicenza, Italy. It was designed by Andrea Palladio, the famous Italian Renaissance architect, who drew inspiration from ancient Roman baths for this villa. Built between 1548 and 1549 for Bonifacio Pojana, a local landowner with a military background, the villa was never completed and some of its latter development strayed from Palladio's original design.

Among the villa's features, some of Palladio's most creative work can be seen on the façade, a serliana with five circular holes (oculi), inspired from ancient Roman models but not derivative from any specific source. The interior decorations include grotesques, stuccos, and frescoes, created by various artists, but the most significant fresco can be found in the central hall, called the Emperors' Salon, which shows a family from classical times, dressed in tunics and togas.

They kneel in front of an altar whilst the pater familias extinguishes the torch of war at the feet of the statue of Peace which stands on the altar.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons