Abstract:The paper reflects on the formalist interpretations of the “Corbusier-Palladio” interrelation put forward by Rudolf Wittkower, Colin Rowe, and Peter Eisenman after the mid-twentieth century. Their different interpretations of this interrelation can be seen in the way they compare and formally analyze Corbusier’s and Palladio’s plans, proportions, and lyrical words. Based on Corbusier’s drawings of Palladio’s buildings in Vicenza recorded in the Album la Roche, this paper demonstrates how Corbusier ‘truly’ discovered Palladio in 1922. Corbusier observed that Palladio had integrated the Greco-Roman tradition at the volumetric corners of the Villa Rotonda, Basilica, and Palazzo Chiericati, which he considered a key issue for Renaissance architects in reconciling separate sets of vocabularies (rectangular hall versus circular dome). This discussion will lead to a new understanding of how twentieth-century formalists saw the problem of inheritance (Corbusier adapting/ innovating Palladio and Classicism).