Abstract:Focusing on the question of ‘why and how did Palladio became so famous,’ this paper dissects the full personality of Palladio through his writing and built work. The intense contact with Daniele Barbaro in preparing the new edition and translation of Vitruvius published in 1556-and again (Italian and Latin) in 1567 -to which Palladio added the figures, is at the base of this remarkable story. Daniele Barbaro praises Palladio as exceptionally talented not only by his understanding of the principles of architecture, but also by his capacity to transfer them into his built works, including the particularly delicate drawings (“sottilissimi e vaghi disegni”). Palladio’s own book I quattro libri dell’architettura first published in 1570, in which he presented his own works, saw an great success. Hence the fame and the admiration grew enormously -by people like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who visited Vicenza in 1786 and discovered there Palladio as a person of great human character and quality. Architects and historians studied and praised him beyond any stylistic or contextual limitations, from Francesco Milizia (1725-1798) to Antoine Chrysost?me Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849), to Jean-NicolasLouis Durand (1760-1834) and Rudolf Wittkower (1901- 1971). And remarkably this interest crossed the usual borders of modernity. Palladio stays for the eternal architectural ideals of proportion and beauty. The simple “C’est du Palladio” stood forever for his exceptional fame.
