Palladian

Style of revivalist architecture influenced by the work of the great Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. The revival of the Palladian style developed mainly in England in the 17th and 18th centuries, and is recognized for its symmetry and elaborate, often exaggerated, adaptations of classical architecture. Inigo Jones introduced Palladianism to England with his Queen's House, Greenwich (1616-35), but the true Palladian revival began in the early 18th century when Richard Boyle Burlington and Colen Campbell ‘rediscovered’ the Palladio-Jones link. Campbell's Mereworth Castle, Kent (1722-25) is an example of the style. The revival, which spread to Russia and the USA, often involved little more than the reuse of Palladian decorative features.

In Russia the Scottish-born Charles Cameron was the principal exponent of Palladianism, while in the USA the style was adopted by Thomas Jefferson, third president of the USA, who designed his own house, Monticello (1769), and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (1817-26).