Andrea Palladio (Padua 1508-Vicenza 1580), Italian architect of the late Renaissance period published L'Antichità di Roma (1554). Between 1560 and 1580 he constructed several churches in Venice.including the churches of San Francesco della Vigna, San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore. His last great work was the theatre in Vicenza for the Academia Olimpica. Palladio cultivated his own interpretation of Roman motifs, and combined many of the elements of the classical style. However, he shared in the Renaissance quest for harmonic proportions. Palladio was the first architect to systematize the layout of the private rooms of a house, and the first to use the ancient Greco-Roman temple front as a portico on residential buildings.
Italian architect Andrea Palladio developed a style, based on the classicism of ancient Rome and breaking with the ornate conventions of the Renaissance; his works include the villa Rotonda and the palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza.
Four Books of Architecture, derived in great part from Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, elaborated the principles of Andrea Palldio; people widely adopted these principles and consequently often consider him the most influential individual in the history of west, "valued for centuries as the quintessence of high Renaissance calm and harmony," according to David Watkin in A History of Western Architecture.