Vicenza, capital of Vicenza province, Veneto region, Italy, lies in the Venetian plain at the eastern end of the fertile corridor between the Alps on the north and the "Monti Berici" on the south. Vicenza thus controls the main routeway along the northern edge of the plain between Lombardy and Venetia, where it is crossed by the ancient trade route between Venice, Padua anf the Alps. Other main routes from both the plain and the Alps converge on the city; it has a railway junction and is also at the head of navigation on the river "Bacchiglione". Vicenza stands at the north-eastern base of the "Monti Berici" and the ancient nucleus, circular shape, was enclosed by the "Bacchiglione" on the north and east and by the tributary "Retrone" on the south. The city has gradually spread round the original nucleus and beyond both rivers, chiefly over the level land between them on the west, but also south near the railway station, up the green slopes of "Monti Berici" to the church of "Madonna del Monte", and north and east beyond the "Bacchiglione". The plain round the city is intensively cultivated and dotted with attractive villas. Vicenza is a market for its fertile region, handling grain, vegetables, fruit, dairy produce, wine and hemp, as well as being a centre for the collection of silk cocoons. It has large woolen, silk and cotton mills, and iron and steel works. There are also fancy glass, brick, tile and earthenware works, paper mills, paper-goods and furniture factories, chemical and soap works. Vicenza is famous for its gold- and silver-smiths and the manufacture of musical instruments; wine is made locally.
The chief artistic treasures are the works of the illustrious architecture Andrea Palladio. In the "Piazza dei Signori" there is his masterpiece, the "Basilica Palladiana", formed of two tiers of colonnaded porticoes in the classical style enclosing gothic "Palazzo della Ragione". The mediaeval roof of this building was burnt, though most of Palladio's work remains. Amongst the other buildings in the square are the lofty, slender "Torre di Piazza" (12th century), the renaissance "Palazzo del Monte di Pietà" (burnt out), and the Lion of St. Mark on a column (1464). The cathedral is a 12th century foundation, with frescoes by Vicenza's principal artist, Bartolomeo Montagna. The "Corso Palladio" is lined with the fine palaces of the Vicentine nobility dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Amongst these is the "Palazzo Chiericati", a good example of Palladio's work containing the civic museum and the art gallary, which has some interesting paintings of the Venetian school. Near by is the "Teatro Olimpico", designed by Palladio in imitation of an ancient theatre for the representation of the classical drama. Vicenza has several interesting churches, including the "Dominician S. Corona", a gothic brick edifice built in 1260, perhaps as a thank-offering for the extinction of the hated family of Romano, and the gothic "Franciscan S. Lorenzo" tomb containing the tomb of Montagna. Outside the city is the sanctuary of the "Madonna di Monte Berico", built in 1428 to commemorate an apparition of the Virgin Mary. It is approached either by a flight of steps commencing from a Palladian arch outside the "Porta Monte", or from the "Porta Lupia" by a portico with 150 arches, symbolizing the beads of the rosary. Also on the slopes of "Monte Berico" is the villa of the Rotonda, one of Palladio's most famous works. It is a square building with an Ionic portico, flanked on either side by outside stairways, and a domed central hall. The "Villa Valmarana" near by the interesting frescoes by Giovanni Tiepolo. The novelist Antonio Fogazzaro (1842-1911) was a native of Vicenza. Population (1990 estimate) 109,333.
