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Vicenza
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Europe's largest producer of textiles and the focus of Italy's "Silicon Valley",
VICENZA
is a very sleek city, where it can seem that every second car is a BMW. Modern prosperity hasn't ruined the look of Vicenza, though. The centre of the city, still partly enclosed by medieval walls, is an amalgam of Gothic and Classical buildings that today looks much as it did when the last major phase of construction came to an end at the close of the eighteenth century. This historic core is compact enough to be explored in a day, but the city and its environs really require a short stay to do them justice.
In 1404 Vicenza was absorbed by Venice, and the city's numerous Gothic palaces reflect its status as a Venetian satellite. But in the latter half of the sixteenth century the city was transformed by the work of an architect who owed nothing to Venice and whose rigorous but flexible style was to influence every succeeding generation - Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, alias Palladio Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Italy,
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