Vicenza
The Rotonda Capra, now in ruins, so well known as Palladio’s villa, was copied by Lord Burlington and planted squat down on the banks of the Thames at Chiswick. It loses considerably by transportation; it were decidedly more effective at the base of Monte Berico in Venezia.
Palladio himself is buried in the local Campo Santo. His grave should become an art lover’s shrine, but no one has ever been known to worship at it.
Between Vicenza and Verona runs a charming highway, strewn with villas of a highly interesting if not superlatively grand architectural order.
A dozen or fifteen kilometres from Vicenza are the two castles of Montecchio, the strongholds of the family of the name celebrated by Shakespere as one of the rivals of the Capulets.
At the Bridge of Arcole is an obelisk in commemoration of the battle when Napoleon went against the Austrians after his check at Caldiero.
Soave, a little further on, is an old walled town as mediæval in its looks and doings as it was when its great gates and towers and its castle fortress on the height were built six centuries ago.
Verona is reached in thirty kilometres and has a sentimental, romantic interest beyond that possessed by any of the secondary cities of Italy. It has not the great wealth of notable architectural splendours of many other places, but what there is is superlatively grand, the structures surrounding the Piazza Erbe and the Piazza dei Signori, for instance; the old Ponte di Castel Vecchio; the great Roman Arena; and even the Albergo all’Accademia, where one is remarkably well cared for in a fine old mediæval palace with a monumental gateway, and an iron and carved stone well in the courtyard.