Villa Rotonda
Palladio’s Villa Almerico Capra near Vicenza: a square block with four temple-front porticoes round a domed circular hall.
The rules it illustrates
Rooms paired about the axis. Place rooms on the right of the entrance equal and corresponding to those on the left, so that the house is alike on both sides and the walls bear the roof equally.
The temple front on the house. Give the front of a country house a portico with a pediment, as the ancients did, for it shows the entrance, gives grandeur, and makes a place to display the owner’s arms.
The principal floor raised on a basement. Raise the principal rooms of a house on a basement storey that holds the kitchens, cellars and service rooms, and reach them by an external stair; put the lesser rooms above them.
Where it appears in the book
In the styles Palladian.
In the chapters Stairs, Renaissance and Baroque.