Portal of the Cathedral

In 1560 Paolo Almerico asked the Cathedral Chapter for permission to erect a portal at his own expense on the north side of the Cathedral, in correspondence with the chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista. This is the same Paolo Almerico who a few years later would commission Palladio for the construction of the Villa Rotonda. The portal was opened in 1565, probably on the occasion of the solemn entrance of the bishop Matteo Priuli.
In the absence of documents or autograph drawings, the attribution to Palladio rests firstly on the portal's affinities with antique models well known to the architect (like the portal of the Temple of Fortuna Virile) and secondly its similarity to the design of the lateral portals of the Cathedral of San Pietro di Castello in Venice, which Palladio designed in 1558.

Dome of the Cathedral

The construction of the apse in the Cathedral of Vicenza had begun in 1482 , based on the design of Lorenzo da Bologna, but was still unfinished in 1531. Only in 1557 did the Comune of Vicenza receive the financial means necessary from the Republic of Venice, in the shape of a bequest left by Bishop Zeno at the beginning of the century, and therefore become able to begin the work's completion.
Andrea Palladio, the author of the new project, most probably drew up an overall design which was however executed in two phases: from 1558 to 1559 the main cornice was built over the windows and the drum raised, while from 1564 to January 1566 the dome itself was constructed.
The characteristic form of the lantern, abstract and devoid of decoration, was replicated on the summit of the cupolas of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (planned in the same years), and is also present in some of Palladio's reconstructions of centrally planned antique temples, such as the Mausoleum of Romulus on the Via Appia.

Many doubts surround the genesis and paternity of the arch which began the access route to the sanctuary of Monte Berico, prior to the mid-eighteenth century realitazion of the porticoes themselves by Francesco Muttoni. What appears to be certain is the date of construction (fixed at 1595) and the identity of the patron, the Venetian captain Giacomo Bragadino.
Equally well documented are the requests of the friars of the Sanctuary, from 1574-1576, to gain financial support from the Community in order to reconstruct the entire stepped route ("le Scalette") to Monte Berico. However, there is no proof as to whether the arch was included in this process of general reconstruction, which also affected the Sanctuary itself. Just as uncertain is the original configuration of the arch, which seventeenth century images show to have had frontal niches, subsequently shifted to the intrados in order to make room for the Annunciation by Orazio Marinali.

It was probably in 1576, on the occasion of Antonio Valmarana's death, that Palladio came to design the delicate chapel in the crypt of the church of Santa Corona, which had already been the sepulchral space of the Valmarana family for fifty years. For Antonio's parents, Palladio had already built the great family palace on today's Corso Fogazzaro some ten years earlier. Undoubtedly Palladian, even without direct documentary evidence, the Cappella Valmarana is a carefully-gauged space, almost a hypogaeum, of extremely reduced dimensions: it is a sophisticated quotation of the tablinum from the antique Roman house.
In virtually the same years Palladio designed the lateral chapels of the church of the Redentore in Venice, arranging in sequence a series of spaces substantially identical to those of the Cappella Valmarana, almost as though the example at Vicenza were a sort of prototype.

Though known as the "House of Palladio", in reality this building has no connection whatsoever with the residence of the Vicentine master. In truth, the Maggior Consiglio forced the notary Pietro Cogollo to remodel the façade of his Quattrocento house as a contribution to the "decorum of the city", making this provision a condition of the positive response to his request to gain Vicentine citizenship.
The constraints posed by a narrow space and the impossibility of opening windows at the centre of the piano nobile (because of an existing fireplace and its flue) induced Palladio to emphasise the façade's central axis, by realising a structure with a ground floor arch flanked by engaged columns, and on the upper storey a sort of tabernacle which framed a fresco by Giovanni Antonio Fasolo.
The result is a composition of great monumental and expressive force, despite the simplicity of the means available.