Palazzo style architecture

Palazzo style refers to an architectural style of the 19th and 20th centuries based upon the palazzi (palaces) built by wealthy families of the Italian Renaissance. The term refers to the general shape, proportion and a cluster of characteristics, rather than a specific design; hence it is applied to buildings spanning a period of nearly two hundred years, regardless of date, provided they are a symmetrical, corniced, basemented and with neat rows of windows. "Palazzo style" buildings of the 19th century are sometimes referred to as being of Italianate architecture but this term is also applied to a much more ornate style, particularly of residences and public buildings.

While early Palazzo style buildings followed the forms and scale of the Italian originals closely, by the late 19th century, the style was more loosely adapted and applied to commercial buildings many times larger than the originals. The architects of these buildings sometimes drew their details from sources other than the Italian Renaissance, such as Romanesque and occasionally Gothic architecture. In the 20th century, the style was superficially applied, like the Gothic revival style, to multi-storey buildings. In the late 20th and 21st century some Postmodern architects have again drawn on the palazzo style for city buildings.

The Palazzo style began in the early 19th century essentially as a revival style which drew, like Classical revival and Gothic revival, upon archaeological styles of architecture, in this case the palaces of the Italian Renaissance. Italian palazzi, as against villas which were set in the countryside, were part of the architecture of cities, being built as town houses, the ground floor often serving as commercial premises. Early palazzi exist from the Romanesque and Gothic periods, but the definitive style dates from a period beginning in the 15th century, when many noble families had become rich on trade. Famous examples include the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi built by Michelozzo in Florence, the Palazzo Farnese built by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and completed by Michelangelo in Rome, and the Ca' Vendramin Calergi by Mauro Codussi and Ca'Grande by Jacopo Sansovino on the Grand Canal in Venice.

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Wikipedia