Andrea Palladio Quotes

The city houses are certainly of great splendor and conveniency to a gentleman...But perhaps he will not reap much less utility and consolation from the country house; where time will be passed in seeing and adorning his own possessions, and by industry, and the art of agriculture, improving his estate; where also by the exercise which in a villa is commonly taken, on foot and horseback, the body will more easily preserve its strength and health; and finally, where the mind, fatigued by the agitations of the city, will be greatly restored and comforted, and be able to quietly attend to the studies of letters and contemplation. Hence it was the ancient sages commonly used to retire to such like places; where...they could easily attain to as much happiness as can be attained here below.

It is likely that L’Enfant’s appointment unsettled Thomas Jefferson. The secretary of state ranked himself as the grand arbiter of public taste and one of the preeminent designers in America. After all, he had studied the great buildings of antiquity as well as those in European cities; he had absorbed Andrea Palladio’s influential treatise The Four Books of Architecture, and was incorporating the principles Palladio had adopted from Roman architecture into the house he was building at Monticello. He had also designed Virginia’s neoclassical statehouse at Richmond. Now Washington, who had never lived in Europe, seemed to disregard his wealth of architectural knowledge, planning experience, and taste, entrusting the capital’s plan to a different designer.