Palazzo Porto, Vicenza

It is a palace designed by Palladio for the Porto family, but whose construction has never been completed. being only two spans that have been built, perhaps due to economic or other problems.

The impressive section of the building that acts as the backdrop to Piazza del Castello is the clear testimony of the unfortunate outcome of a Palladian construction site. To the left of the fragment, the old fifteenth-century house of the Porto family is clearly visible, which was destined to be progressively demolished with the progress of the construction of the new building, which evidently did not happen due to the prudence of the client Alessandro Porto. The dating is uncertain, but certainly after 1570, both because the palace is not included in the Four books of architecture (published in Venice in that year) and because Alessandro inherits the family properties in Piazza Castello after the death of Father Benedetto, in the context of the division of family assets with the brothers Orazio and Pompeo, which took place in 1571. Francesco Thiene, owner of the Palladian palace of the same name at the other end of the square, married Isabella Porto, Alessandro's sister, and as in the case of Iseppo da Porto and his brothers-in-law Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene, perhaps it was precisely the competition between the two families be at the origin of the unusual size of Palazzo Porto. Moreover, it is the very position of the building, the backdrop of the square, that makes accentuated monumentality necessary, capable of dominating the large open space in front: a logic experimented a few years earlier with the Loggia del Capitaniato in Piazza dei Signori. In all likelihood, the building should have developed into seven spans and have a courtyard closed as an exedra, as evidenced by an analysis of the surviving walls. It is not clear the reason for the blockage of the construction site, which Vincenzo Scamozzi declares in 1615 to have personally led to the current, partial conclusion. The interiors have been heavily altered over time. In 1994 it was included by UNESCO, together with the other Palladian architecture of the city, in the list of world heritage sites.

Designed by the Vicentine architect Andrea Palladio, it was to become the new residence of the Porto family. It was not possible to understand why it was concluded with only one section when studies on the building concluded that the same identical sections in the project had to be seven. It is however a work of "art by Palladio shortly after 1570 that ended the student Vincenzo Scamozzi.