tury, came to be known as the Basilica Pal-
ladiana. Palladio wrote a guidebook to the
antiquities of Rome, illustrated a Renais-
sance edition of the writings of the Ro-
man architect Vitruvius, and founded an
academy in Vicenza. HisFour Books on Ar-
chitecture, completed in 1570, is a com-
plete account of techniques of architecture
applied to private homes, religious build-
ings, and civic buildings.
Palladio is best known for private vil-
las he designed in the Veneto, including
the Villa Barbaro and the Villa Capra, an
elegant symmetrical cube topped by a
dome and displaying a temple front on
each of its four sides. His elegant “Palla-
dian” style combined ancient building ele-
ments and the Renaissance taste for the
opulent display of wealth. Drawing on his
discoveries in the ruins of ancient Rome,
he employed classical columns, arches,
pediments, atriums, and peristyles
(courts), always careful to balance the dif-
ferent elements of a building and consider
the structure’s presence on its natural site.
Palladian buildings exhibited the harmony
and balance of the classical world. Palladio
swept away the decorative Gothic style and
set the standard for architecture for the
next two centuries, when builders in Eu-
rope and the United States, including Tho-
mas Jefferson, were imitating his style in
structures large and small.
SEEALSO: Alberti, Leon Battista; architec-
ture; Bramante, Donato
Papacy .............................................
Since the time of the early Roman Empire,
when the Christian faith was banned, the
bishops of Rome exercised a wide-ranging
authority over Christian believers, based
on the establishment of the Roman church
by the apostle Peter. After the fall of the
western empire in the fifth century, the
city of Constantinople became the seat of
power of the eastern Roman (Byzantine)
emperors, and the Christian bishops of
that city challenged the authority of Rome.
The popes of Rome sent missionaries to
northern Europe to convert pagans to the
new faith, a process that took five centu-
ries through the early Middle Ages. In the
meantime, the Eastern and Western Chris-
tian churches contended for centuries over
doctrine and their respective authority in
Europe, with a Great Schism occurring be-
tween the two in 1054. In the meantime,
the popes of Rome were fighting the em-
perors of the Holy Roman Empire for con-
trol of Italy, with the popes wielding the
power of excommunication over the em-
perors, who had large, multinational
armies and allied Italian cities and states
on their side.
The medieval Papacy was torn by its
own inner conflicts and rivalries, leading
to the “Babylonian Captivity” in which the
popes moved from Rome to a palace in
the city of Avignon in southern France.
The schism within the Papacy, which at
times was claimed to be led by three dif-
ferent men, and the worldliness of the
church inspired a movement for reform
and defiance of the pope’s authority. Un-
der the leadership of Jan Hus, Martin
Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin,
the Protestant Reformation sought a re-
turn to the early simplicity and purity of
the Christian faith, and an end to the
worldly power and wealth claimed by the
popes and their representatives. In Rome,
the papal court became a leading center
for the patronage of artists, sculptors,
scholars, and architects, and the Papacy
grew wealthy from the system of tithing
and the selling of indulgences—the par-
doning of sins.
A Counter-Reformation began in the
late Renaissance after several meetings ofPapacy