trees and meadows and woods, with the distant Vicenza on the horizon.
The northwest portico is set into the hill as the termination of a straight carriage drive from the principal gates. This carriageway is an avenue between the service blocks, built by the Capra brothers who acquired the villa in 1591, they commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi to complete the villa and construct the range of staff and agricultural buildings. As one approaches the villa from this angle one is deliberately made to feel one is ascending from some less worthy place to a temple on high. This same view, in reverse, from the villa, highlights the classical chapel on the edge of Vicenza itself, thus villa and town are united.
2004
Today the Villa Capra is in the ownership of Mario di Valmarana, an architect, and expert on the works of Palladio and also a former professor of architecture at University of Virginia since 1973. The villa has been his family's home for more than two centuries. It is his declared ambition to preserve Villa Rotunda so that it may be appreciated by future generations.