Villa Barbaro at Maser: Science, Philosophy, and the Family in Venetian Renaissance Art

Through a careful description of its architecture, paintings and sculptures, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Villa Barbaro at Maser, one of the most famous masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Commissioned and designed by Daniele Barbaro, a leading humanist of the Venetian Renaissance, and his brother Marc'Antonio, an important politician of the Republic of Venice and a talented amateur artist, the villa's architecture and painted decoration were created by two canonical figures of Renaissance art: the architect Andrea Palladio and the painter Paolo Veronese. By offering a new and holistic reading of the iconographic program of Villa Barbaro, the study highlights in particular the importance of women, childbirth and motherhood. With a strong multidisciplinary approach, the book is also a contribution to the history of astronomy, philosophy and domesticity in sixteenth-century Venice.