Palazzo Chiericati / Museo Civico

Palazzo Chiericati faces the Teatro Olimpico across Piazza Matteotti and houses Vicenza's main civic museum. Palladio designed it in 1550 with a two-storey colonnade that opens the building to the square — an unusual and generous gesture for a private palace. The facade is one of his most celebrated: classical columns, loggias, and a central pediment that manages to be both austere and elegant.

The Museo Civico inside holds a collection of Venetian and Vicentine paintings from the 14th to the 18th century, with works by Tintoretto, Tiepolo, and Van Dyck among others. The collection is not world-class but the setting is. You are looking at paintings from inside one of the most important buildings of the Renaissance — the architecture competes with the art for attention, and both deserve it.

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A story
Palladio designed Palazzo Chiericati in 1550 on an open field at the edge of town — at that time the area outside the city gates. His solution was to treat the ground floor as a public loggia, effectively donating the space beneath the palace to the city as a covered walkway. The building's relationship to the street is the opposite of a private palace; it gives rather than takes.

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