Cloister of the Cypresses at San Giorgio Maggior

Venice (c. 1560) The concept for the great Ionic cloister in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore probably dates back to an overall plan drawn up in the early 1560s, at the time of the building campaigns on the refectory and church. In any case, the first stone was laid only in 1579, and works concluded during the first half of the seventeenth century. Palladio’s authorship is therefore a possibility and in this particular instance one must bear in mind that his design operated within a quite precise typology: the cloister with double columns, already present in the monasteries at Brescia and Milan, affiliated — like San Giorgio — to the powerful Congregazione di Santa Giustina.

View (photo Sutto 1999)
 

Detail (photo Sutto 1999)
 

Detail of the corner (photo Sutto 1999)
 

Plan and section (Muttoni 1743)