Exterior view

For early 19th-cemtury villa architecture, the most influential source was Palladio, with his clear, cubic structures. An example is the Villa Belmonte, high above Palermo on the slopes of Monte Pellegrino, built by the Roman-trained architect Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia in 1801-06 for Giuseppe Ventimiglia, Prince of Belmonte. With its stately proportions and grand articulation by a rusticated ground floor and strongly projecting centrepiece of raised Ionic columns, the massive villa is set dramatically against a rock face.