Vicenza E-Bike Tour: Half-Day Guided Journey Through History and UNESCO Wonders

A quick passage to the place where the Convent of Aracoeli once stood, even before the baroque church that can be admired today. It was the scene of a shocking twist in the story of Bianca Nievo Angaran, poetess, intellectual and wife of that Giacomo Angaran to whom Palladio dedicated his first two Architectural Books. One of those extraordinary female figures of the Renaissance who paid dearly for her independence, refinement and freedom of thought ...

Originally owned by the Capra family as La Rotonda, adjacent to one of their buildings in that Contrà San Marco that you will cross in your next stop, here we are in the splendid green lung of Vicenza. Purchased by the Querini family, thanks to the story of your guide you can imagine it when it housed a "moraro", a mulberry plantation that fueled the rich Vicenza silk trade. An ancient business that made Vicenza a pole of contact and exchanges with the whole of Europe, a vocation rooted in the city's DNA and which continues today, not only in the textile sector.

It is curious that, in the district dedicated to the Venetian patron saint, the memory of a construction site that Palladio was forced to neglect for a long time precisely because of Venice, or rather the many professional commitments that, at the height of his career, they saw him busy in the capital of the Serenissima. We are talking about Palazzo Schio Vaccari Lioy Angaran, and the facade that Bernardo da Schio commissioned for the architect, then dying before seeing it completed ...

The ancient Temple of Santa Corona is a precious treasure chest of history and art, which offers the visitor its famous Bellini altarpiece and the Naturalistic and Archaeological Museum. But it is also, like every Vicenza stone, part of the history of Palladio, and in particular of its epilogue. The Temple housed the sepulchre of many of the most illustrious Vicentines of the past, and the Valmarana friends wanted the one who would remain the most illustrious artist linked to the city to rest here ...

Few people know that Piazza dei Signori, home to the last Palladian masterpieces you will visit on this tour, takes the name of Piazza delle Biade to the west beyond its two columns. Coming from Venice, this was the official entrance to Vicenza, a precious commercial outpost of the Serenissima on the mainland. From here, the perspective on the masterpieces that have forever redesigned the nerve centre of the city is particularly exciting: your exceptional narrative voice will allow you to dive into the past and step into the shoes of a Venetian notable on his first visit to Vicenza ...

Before immersing yourself in the timeless beauty of Piazza dei Signori, from Piazza Biade your Palladiana guide will take you to first admire Piazza delle Erbe, with its unprecedented view of the Palladian Basilica and its painful history linked to the Torre del Tormento, which dominates the small square. On this occasion, you can also take a first look at some of the most popular places in Vicenza where you can enjoy a well-deserved aperitif at the end of the day ...

In the nerve centre of Vicenza, two capital works of Palladio face each other, embracing the traveller who enters Piazza dei Signori. On the one hand, the Basilica, the most important public work in the city that adopted Palladio, chose him for this construction among the most brilliant minds of architecture then operating, such as Sansovino, Sanmicheli or Giulio Romano. Here the story of the collaboration and friendship between Palladio and Alvise Valmarana, Gerolamo Chiericati and the mentor Giangiorgio Trissino also reaches its peak ... Only years later, now old, now "Venetian", in front of his Basilica under construction, Palladio was also commissioned to build the Loggia del Capitanio. By placing Venice in front of Vicenza, he managed to represent them in their harmonious proximity, as if the dominant, glorious and attentively present capital observed the families of the Vicentine intelligence gathered in the Council ...

A palace in the city centre, right at the height of the ancient Roman forum on the major road. The Thiene were the aspiring princes of Vicenza, those who had contributed to delivering the city to Venice more than a century earlier. Very wealthy, they needed the most sumptuous palace of all, above their friends Da Porto, above the Valmarana. A step back in time in the history of Palladio, who here is a novice yet already the creator of a project by the much more illustrious Giulio Romano, as well as of his youthful dream: that great men would dare to bet on him, teaching him to dare ..

The only palace of his that Palladio was able to see completed was the one for Count Montano Barbarano, an excellent musician, passionate about ancient histories like the architect and many others in the Vicenza of the time. At a high price, however: the children were forced to sell it immediately, the mansion that had elevated the family to the rank of the most glorious, but which had also reduced it to bankruptcy ... Today the prestigious building houses the Palladio Museum in Vicenza.

What a great port, Count Iseppo. That was their road, precisely the Contrà dei Porti, half owned by their ancient illustrious family from Vicenza, the other half by the Thiene, whose daughter Iseppo had recently taken as his daughter Livia. A kaleidoscope of versions, rethinking, corrections and variations characterized the design: the clients had an understanding of architecture and the result was a high discussion with Palladio, a dance, between inspections and dinners, which lasted years. There was talk of projects, but also of much more: a few years earlier he, Adriano Thiene and several other friends had been jailed, accused of heresy ...

This is where the story of a great entrepreneur of himself was born, like many other people from Vicenza before and after him. Here, in the Bottega dei Pedemuro, the Paduan Andrea di Pietro della Gondola began his career as an apprentice, and finally as a stonemason. A career of which by now, dear traveller, you will be a fine connoisseur at this point of your tour, after admiring the grandiose and magnificent face that Palladio, as he was later renamed, would have given to the city by going down in history ...

Like Palazzo Thiene, the Villa for Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene was also designed by the great Giulio Romano, the family architect who had very close relations with the Gonzagas of Mantua. At the beginning of his career as an architect, Palladio was actually the director of the works here, knowing how to show the masons how to do without a stone as much as possible, in favour of terracotta even in differently shaped parts. He was himself a construction man. But this was interrupted, to be taken up much later in another direction ...

The shade of the trees in the Salvi Gardens appears almost jealous of the beauty that seems to want to hide from the unwary and curious eye. In the Valmarana garden, under the walls of Porta Castello, a loggia is reflected in double symmetry on the veil of water, created for Leonardo, son of that Giovanni Alvise, a great friend of Palladio. Palladian work or not? Palladian in any case, to the extent that his style "alla Palladia" is, which was already beginning to be imitated while the architect was alive. An enchantment between form and substance, idea and matter, vision and reality ...

The tour and the fascinating history of Vicenza will come to an end with the return to Palazzo Valmarana Braga, our starting point. You can visit the shop or ask for advice from the highly trained and attentive staff of our info point, who will be happy to help you plan the continuation of your stay.