From Rome to England, Via Vicenza: Rocca Pisana and the English Country House

In this story: The Italian Roots of the English Country House · Palladio and Scamozzi, Two Ideas of the Perfect Villa · How Many Pantheons Are There? · Beyond Rome: Pantheon Inspired Architecture in Vicenza

THE ITALIAN ROOTS OF THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE

Rocca Pisana belongs to the architectural ancestry of Chiswick House in London. Architectural historian Howard Burns identifies Scamozzi’s villa as the source of Chiswick’s octagonal drum, the structure beneath its dome, and the serliana windows on its sides. Guido Beltramini makes the relationship equally explicit in The Palladians: Chiswick’s dome “emulates the cupola of the Rocca Pisana”. The Italian house with a memory of Rome’s Pantheon became, in its own right, a model for an English villa. [1, 2]

Built between 1726 and 1729, Chiswick was designed by Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, with advice from William Kent, the painter, architect and garden designer. Burlington’s travels in Italy supplied an education in how architecture could express cultivated taste. Chiswick assembled ideas from several Italian buildings into a villa with its own ambitions; Rocca Pisana contributed to the profile by which it is recognised. The English country house world familiar through Regency fiction and Bridgerton has a much longer architectural history, and part of it can be followed back to Lonigo. [2, 3]

There is a more intimate English afterlife, too. Writing in Country Life in 2020, Roger White described the restoration of the Summerhouse on the Grimsthorpe Castle estate in Lincolnshire by Martin and Gil Williams. In a small room beside the saloon, painted architectural vignettes include three buildings by Sir John Vanbrugh and a fourth, Rocca Pisana. White explains its presence through the family’s “very happy family summer holidays” at the villa. A place they had inhabited in Italy had become part of the decoration of their English home. [4]

Those two connections give Rocca Pisana an unusual place in the country house story. At Chiswick, its architecture helped shape another building; at Grimsthorpe, the memory of staying there deserved a place on the wall. The villa in Lonigo remains available for private stays, allowing the history traced through drawings and books to become the setting for a week of one’s own.

Explore a week at Rocca Pisana, with its historic rooms and private garden.  

PALLADIO AND SCAMOZZI, TWO IDEAS OF THE PERFECT VILLA

Rocca Pisana was designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi; Villa La Rotonda in Vicenza was designed by Andrea Palladio and completed with Scamozzi’s involvement. Both organise a house around a circular hall beneath a dome. Comparing them reveals two ways of adapting the monumental language associated with Rome’s Pantheon to the requirements of a private residence. [2, 6, 7]

At La Rotonda, four projecting porticoes repeat the ceremonial face of the house towards four different prospects. Rocca Pisana draws its entrance loggia into the main body of the building and opens the other three sides through serlianas. The difference is experienced through movement: the approach, the ascent to the entrance and the arrival beneath the dome have a particular direction at Rocca Pisana, followed by the possibility of looking out across the country on every side. [6]

Beltramini brings the comparison indoors. In The Palladians, he describes Rocca Pisana’s central hall as providing “radial access to all the rooms”, and emphasises the distribution of natural light through the building. His reading gives the circular hall a practical responsibility alongside its ceremonial presence. The most monumental room in the villa also organises the relationships between the surrounding spaces. A stay in the house allows that arrangement to be understood through repeated, ordinary use. [2, p. 34]

The commission also has a family history. Giovanni Giaconi and Giovanni Battista Gleria connect Vettor Pisani’s new villa with the division of property between him and his brothers, after which the family’s other residences belonged to the brothers. They suggest that Scamozzi’s reference to healthier air may allude to strained family relations as well as physical health. Vettor died in July 1576, the year associated with the villa’s completion; the authors leave the blank tablet above its entrance as an unresolved question. The pleasure retreat has a more complicated human background than its symmetry initially suggests. [6]

Scamozzi’s subsequent work on La Rotonda adds another reason to see the two villas together. The official account of La Rotonda credits him with completing its dome in a form that differs from Palladio’s published design and recalls the Pantheon. The comparison therefore concerns two architectural imaginations whose work eventually met in the same building, as well as two houses through which Vicenza continued its conversation with ancient Rome. [7]

HOW MANY PANTHEONS ARE THERE?

A count of the world’s Pantheons depends on what is being counted: monuments that bear the name, or buildings inspired by the Roman Pantheon’s architecture. Rocca Pisana belongs to the second group, as a Renaissance villa in Vicenza province whose circular hall, dome and open oculus reinterpret the Roman precedent.

The ancient Pantheon stands in Rome’s Piazza della Rotonda. The present building dates from the reign of Hadrian and has served as the church of Santa Maria ad Martyres since 609. Its architectural influence extends far beyond the buildings that share its name. [8]

The Panthéon in Paris began as the church of Sainte Geneviève and acquired its role as a national burial place during the French Revolution. Lisbon’s National Pantheon occupies the Baroque church of Santa Engrácia and commemorates prominent figures in Portuguese history. These examples concern both architecture and the public remembrance of distinguished lives. [9, 10]

At Rocca Pisana, the inheritance took a domestic form. The dome covers the central hall of a private country house, with rooms and views arranged around it. Calling it a “Pantheon in Vicenza” describes that architectural relationship. Following the relationship to Lonigo adds a different experience to an Italian architecture itinerary: a villa that can be visited, or inhabited during a private stay. [5, 6, 11]

BEYOND ROME: PANTHEON INSPIRED ARCHITECTURE IN VICENZA

Rocca Pisana gives the story of the Pantheon a destination in the countryside of Vicenza. Its appeal brings together a surviving Renaissance interior, documented connections with English country houses and the possibility of spending a week within the architecture discussed in these pages.

Where is the Pantheon in Vicenza?

The villa discussed here as a “Pantheon in Vicenza” is Rocca Pisana, also known as Villa Pisani Ferri, in Lonigo, province of Vicenza, Veneto, northern Italy. Designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi for Vettor Pisani and conventionally dated to 1576, it has a circular hall beneath a dome with an open oculus. Its address is Via Rocca, 36045 Lonigo. [5, 6]

Where is the original Pantheon?

The ancient Roman Pantheon is in Piazza della Rotonda, Rome, Italy. Rocca Pisana’s connection to it is architectural: Scamozzi adapted the experience of a domed circular interior open to the sky for a Renaissance country villa in Vicenza province. [6, 8, 12]

Which villas should you compare on a Pantheon inspired itinerary in Vicenza?

Rocca Pisana in Lonigo and Villa La Rotonda in Vicenza offer a closely connected pair. Both adapt a domed central hall to a private house, while their entrances, porticoes and relationships with the landscape differ. Seeing both gives Scamozzi’s contribution its proper place alongside Palladio’s. [2, 6, 7]  

Plan a visit or a week at Rocca Pisana, with rooms, gardens and practical information.