Villa Barbaro, from I quattro libri dell'architettura di Andrea Palladio (Book 2, page 51)

Andrea Palladio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of Palladio's architectural masterpieces, the Villa Barbaro (1557–58) overlooks the farmlands near Asolo and Vicenza. The villa has an elongated composition consisting of a central wing with various side pavilions and courtyards, thus incorporating features of the typical farmyard of the Veneto region (barns, dovecotes). As such, it demonstrates Palladio's versatility in developing a range of models for classical-inspired villas and his ability to incorporate each client's special needs. The design extends into the landscape by ordering the experience of the natural environment with an ornamental fountain and nymphaeum carved into the hill behind the villa. The decorative program brings the countryside into the house through the Venetian painter Paolo Veronese's refined and delicately colored murals depicting scenes from contemporary villa life that transform the cruciform sala into an apparent colonnade.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art