It’s a misty October day when we visit the villa. Opening the gate, we’re greeted by a sloping pebbled path lined on either side by roses. It functions as a sort of cue, directing the eye ahead to what we’ve all come to see: architect Andrea Palladio’s Villa Almerico Capra, detta “La Rotonda,” the basis for Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and perhaps Palladio’s own capolavoro. 

We are initially stunned by the aspects we knew to expect—the villa’s pleasing Vitruvian proportions, its four identical facades, its flattened dome, based on the Pantheon, the fact that, as Palladio expert Roberta Parlato told us, “it’s all clear. You understand immediately where you have to go.”