Santo Stefano faces a corner of the huge Palazzo Thiene , another of Palladio’s palaces. It was planned to occupy the entire block down to Corso Palladio, but in the end work progressed no further than the addition of this wing to the existing fifteenth-century house. The deception of the old building is in Contrà Porti, a street that amply demonstrates the way in which the builders of Vicenza grafted new houses onto old without disrupting the symmetry of the street; the palaces here span two centuries, yet the overall impression is one of cohesion. Facing Palazzo Thiene is the Palazzo Barbaran, which houses a research institute for Palladian structure ( www.cisapalladio.org ) and often has excellent exhibitions, usually, but not always, on classical architects.

Outstanding buildings on Contrà Porti are the fourteenth-century Palazzo Colleoni Porto (no. 19) and Palladio’s neighbouring Palazzo Iseppo Porto , designed a few years after the Thiene palace. The parallel Corso A. Fogazzaro completes the itinerary of major Palladian buildings, with the Palazzo Valmarana (no. 16), perhaps the most anomaly of Palladio’s projects - notice the gigantic stucco figures at the sides of the facade, where you’d expect columns to be.

At the end of Contrà Santa Corona, two blocks easterly of Contrà Porti, the Palazzo Leoni-Montanari