I wasn’t able to devote as much time to my Virtual Trip last week and on top of that I spent quite a lot of time doing background reading. So I don’t feel as if I did a lot… but of course now that I put it all together, it’s a nice collection.

I was on my ‘break week’ in between the Palladian Odyssey Umbria and Veneto Tours. As I did last year, I had planned a week at Marostica, resting and hanging out with my dear friend and local art historian Monica Facchini.
Last year we managed to do some amazing things in my week visit as I tagged along with her private tours. See more about that here.

After 2 weeks in Umbria I was ready to move to a more colourful part of Italy and of course I was keen to get my teeth into some Palladian buildings and research again. It was nice to be included in this Instagram post during the week – can you see me and my sketchbook? (I will be revisiting this villa (Cerato Forni) next week!) Last year I managed to meet a number of people in the Palladian community and of course I was hoping for more this year… but instead I got a chance to do more reading and research.

Marostica, where Monica lives,  has an incredible city wall and last year it was too wet to climb to the top of the hill – so this year I did it virtually.

And then… I got into Palladio mode! I started by revisiting Maser and sketching the Tempietto (a favourite building to sketch!) and Villa di Maser (Villa Barbaro).

For the rest of the week I spent some of my down time each evening reading up on a few of Palladio’s early villas and then did a few quick sketches. On the left you can see the pile of books I referred to during the week. There are some important books not included in this pile such as Wittkower, Colin Rowe and Palladian Days and of course there are chapters on Palladio in various general history books, or books on Renaissance architecture. On the right you can see the two books which I have referred to the most during the week: Palladio’s own book “The Four Books of Architecture” and my sketchbook from 2001 where I drew all the villas and added some important notes and quotes.

And then on Saturday night I ‘arrived’ in Vicenza! Ah! so good to be back, even if it is just virtually. Ah! Basilica Palladiana

A few sketches of my most sketched Palladian buildings including a five minute sketch of his Loggia del Capitaniato.

My main takeaway from this week is that it’s much easier to sketch from photos when you’ve been to the place before and you’re sketching from your own photos. It’s easy to pretend you’re there and feel a sense of place and space. S0 this week, the type of sketching I was doing was harder, as it involved researching, reading and looking at multiple images in various books and websites to understand the villas before I started my sketch.

Anyway… here are the pages from this week. Some of them are a little architectural, but I had fun with colour and texture!

(Click on images to see them larger!)