Villa Duodo

Villa Duodo, also known as the Villa Valier, is a villa situated at Monselice near Padua in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is attributed to the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi although some later parts are known to have been designed by Andrea Tirali. The villa was built for a Venetian patrician, Francesco Duodo, circa 1592.

Sited high on the rocca of Monselice, the villa, which shows Palladian influences, is not so much a villa as a religious complex. Two "L"-shaped blocks form a rectangular courtyard. Attached to the villa is a church dedicated to San Giorgio which is the final and largest church completing a "sacred route" of pilgrimage.

Scamozzi, the villas's principal architect, had been a pupil of Palladio and was largely responsible for carrying Palladio's classicising style into the 17th century. His Idea dell'Architettura Universale, published in 1615, coupled with Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (1570) were to spread their classically based architecture throughout Europe and the New World. Villa Duodo was one of Scamozzi's works of his intermediate period, designed when he was forty and fully competent in the use of perspective and proportion.

The villa, which is built on the site of an ancient castle, is constructed of rendered stone with architectural details and motifs in dressed stone. The principal wing, on two floors, centers a lightly projecting bay that resembles a two-storey triumphal arch flanked by two symmetrical bays, each with open Serlian windows decorated with rusticated stone on the ground floor; above the motif continues, however, here in place of side windows are niches containing statuary.

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