page_title: Hammond–Harwood House
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Hammond–Harwood House / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Villa Pisani in Leoni from Palladio
context_page_description: The Hammond–Harwood House is a historic house museum at 19 Maryland Avenue in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. Built in 1774, is one of the premier colonial houses remaining in America from the British colonial period. It is the only existing work of colonial academic architecture that was principally designed from a plate in Andrea Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. The house was designed by the architect William Buckland in 1773–1774 for wealthy farmer Matthias Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It was modeled on the design of the Villa Pisani in Montagnana, Italy, as depicted in Book II, Chapter XIV of Palladio's work. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, and is now managed by a non-profit organization as a museum.
context_section_description: The house ranks architecturally with many of the great mansions built in the late Colonial period; however, it is the only house directly inspired from a plate in Palladio's, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. It is arguably the most exquisite house remaining from the Colonial period in America.
  Architect William Buckland adapted Palladio's Villa Pisani design to satisfy the tastes of colonial Annapolis. He re-designed the plan to accommodate the tastes for asymmetrical regional preferences and modified the hyphens from Palladio's arched entries to more practical single storey connecting links. He also incorporated fashionable urban design by sinking the windows in the method mandated by the London Building Act of 1774. This device provided better protection from fire and gave the overall design a greater degree of visual solidity and three dimensionality (see image at right). This adaptation from Palladio's model marks his maturity as an architect and ranks him as one of America's first and finest architects.
  The initial design of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello was taken from the Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese, Italy, in Book II, Chapter XV of I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, but this façade was later covered up by Jefferson's own expansions to his house.  Thomas Jefferson made two drawings of the Hammond–Harwood House when he served the government in Annapolis in 1783–1784. One could assume that Jefferson recognized the house as derived from Palladio because his knowledge of The Four Books of Architecture was extensive. He referred to the book as his architectural "bible" and the plate of the Villa Cornaro follows the Villa Pisani plate; and directly opposite the Villa Cornaro in some 18th-century English transcriptions of the work.
caption: The Villa Pisani, Montagnana from The Four Books of Architecture by Andrea Palladio, Giacomo Leoni, 1742
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