Post by Alfred Kren

Alex Crevar’s article is accompanied by rich photographs by Matteo de Mayda “… My first layover, Padua, has been a university town since 1222. Galileo and Copernicus spent pivotal points in their academic careers there. The city’s youthful buzz is apparent as you cross arcaded piazzas crowded with food vendors. Unsurprisingly, Padua’s UNESCO contributions reflect its cutting-edge creativity. Spread across eight sites, Padua’s 14th-century fresco cycles make Padua the original Urbs Picta, or “painted city.” In the Scrovegni Chapel, the artist Giotto Di Bondone’s gold stars fleck a lapis ceiling over walls depicting the spiritual and secular, heavenly and hellish. I then walked to the nine-acre botanical garden, the world’s oldest, founded in 1545, with 6,000 international plants, a museum, open spaces and greenhouses. Vicenza, my next stop, owes its UNESCO listing to the 16th-century architect Andrea Palladio, who designed 23 of the city’s most vaunted buildings, including Teatro Olimpico, the world’s oldest indoor theater, and dozens of villas around town and the region. His masterpiece, surrounded by groves and flower beds just outside Vicenza’s center, is the domed Villa La Rotonda. If a visit here feels familiar, it’s because Palladio’s meticulous symmetry and temple porticos have been imitated countless times, notably for Jefferson’s Monticello and the White House. …” https://lnkd.in/eFgVmBWN