Palladio. The first algorithm: Rule, dataset and the myth of the humanist origin of design

Giuseppe Amoruso · Politecnico di Milano

This essay offers a deliberately provocative reading of Palladio’s method as one of the earliest historically documented examples, and certainly the most extensively studied in computational research, of a design system based on explicit production rules, formalized since 1978 as a generative shape grammar. Starting from the structural analogy between treatise and dataset, the essay identifies the point at which …

Keywords: ANDREA PALLADIO, GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, EPISTEMOLOGY OF DRAWING, ARCHITECTURAL EIDETICS, DIGITAL REPRESENTATION

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Palladio in time: Fictitious pasts and imagined futures

David Hemsoll · University of Birmingham

Andrea Palladio has attracted an unparalleled amount of scholarly attention and has provided, by way of his treatise the I Quattro libri dell’architettura, very many architectural practitioners with a fount of inspiration, and a pivotal point of reference between past accomplishments and future endeavours. This article examines the writing on Palladio to determine the extent to which it has arrived …

Keywords: ANDREA PALLADIO, PALLADIAN, THEORY, CLASSICISM, HISTORIOGRAPHY

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From Fanum Fortunae to Palladio: Vitruvius’s Basilica and the genealogy of classical architecture

Paolo Clini · Università Politecnica delle Marche

The recent archaeological identification of Vitruvius’s basilica at Fanum Fortunae (Fano) offers an opportunity to reinterpret the building as both a material and a theoretical nexus in the continuity of classical architecture. Drawing on more than thirty years of research on the Vitruvian text, the history of its graphic interpretations, architectural survey, 3D modelling and digital archaeology, the article traces …

Keywords: VITRUVIUS, FANUM FORTUNAE, PALLADIO, VITRUVIUS’S BASILICA AT FANUM FORTUNAE, DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION

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The Limit and the Poetics of Wonder: Heritage communities and the Faro Convention

Viviana Matrangola · Bureau of the Regional Council of Apulia

This article reconsiders the notion of limits not as a mere regulatory constraint but as an ethical, cultural and political principle for the protection and enhancement of cultural heritage. In a context shaped by globalisation, digitisation and the growing commodification of cultural assets, the limit is proposed as a means of reconciling conservation, public access and the intergenerational transmission of …

Keywords: HERITAGE COMMUNITIES, FARO CONVENTION, PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE, CULTURAL WELFARE, CULTURAL HERITAGE TRANSMISSION

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Between measure and machine: Palladian methodologies in the age of artificial intelligence

Ricardo Álvarez-Díaz · Álvarez-Díaz & Villalón (AD&V)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how buildings are conceived, represented, analyzed and constructed. This paper argues that Andrea Palladio’s I quattro libri dell’architettura (1570) offers a methodological framework for addressing this challenge, reading his drawings not as stylistic precedents but as structured architectural knowledge that can be reinterpreted through digital technologies. The argument is tested on Casa Andelani in San …

Keywords: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ANDREA PALLADIO, ARCHITECTURAL REPRESENTATION, BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM), ENVIRONMENTAL SIMULATION

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Palladio and Canaletto in Venice: Between reality and imagination

Alberto Sdegno · Università degli Studi di Udine

This paper examines the relationship between architecture, representation and perception through the peristyle of the Convento della Carità in Venice, designed by Andrea Palladio and later depicted by Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto. It compares three levels of interpretation: the project published in I quattro libri dell’architettura (1570), the building as constructed and its transposition in Canaletto’s painting. The Carità …

Keywords: VENICE, ANDREA PALLADIO, CANALETTO, CONVENTO DELLA CARITÀ, DIGITAL MODELLING

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Between Palladio and Persepolis: Beaux-Arts pedagogy and the translation of architectural knowledge in modern Iran

Amir Abbas Mansoori Mehr · Politecnico di Torino

This article examines modern Iran’s relationship with Palladianism as a problem of translating architectural knowledge rather than one of direct influence or stylistic imitation. Iran did not need Europe to discover order, proportion, axiality or hierarchy: its traditions had long developed systems of geometry, courtyard, garden, water, threshold and iwan. The question is how these spatial traditions were recoded within …

Keywords: ANDREA PALLADIO, ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS, MOHSEN FOROUGHI, IRANIAN MODERN ARCHITECTURE, ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING AND PEDAGOGY

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Ideal geometry and built reality in Gothic cathedrals: A comparative analysis through terrestrial laser scanning

David Moreno-García, Albert Samper · Universitat Rovira i Virgili

This paper analyses the geometric differences between traditional architectural documentation and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) surveys of five European Gothic cathedrals: Girona, Mallorca, Narbonne, Laon and Chartres. Whereas historical drawings rely on idealised geometries that synthesise a building’s spatial and constructional logic, TLS records deformations, irregularities and construction tolerances that traditional methods rarely capture. The research combines TLS campaigns, CAD …

Keywords: GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING (TLS), ARCHITECTURAL SURVEYING, DIGITAL HERITAGE, GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS

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Space in classical Chinese and Italian painting: Late Renaissance conceptual and geometric devices

Pedro P. Palazzo · University of Brasília

This article offers a comparative view of the development of representations of architectural and open spaces in Chinese and Italian paintings and drawings. Architectural historians have long discussed the concept of space within theories of aesthetic perception and cognition. Their works, however, have bound the study of spatial conception to extraneous notions such as artistic freedom, and to a teleological …

Keywords: ARCHITECTURAL SPACE, PERSPECTIVE, CULTURAL HISTORY, CHINA, ITALY

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Palladio in time: Fictitious pasts and imagined futures

David Hemsoll · University of Birmingham

Andrea Palladio has attracted an unparalleled amount of scholarly attention and has provided, by way of his treatise the Quattro libri dell'architettura, very many architectural practitioners with a fount of inspiration, and a pivotal point of reference between past accomplishments and future endeavours. This article examines the writing on Palladio to determine the extent to which it has arrived at …

Keywords: Palladio, palladian theory, classicism, historiography

Hemsoll, D. (2026). Palladio in time: Fictitious pasts and imagined futures. Palladianist, 1(1), 306–329.

Licence CC BY 4.0