as wide as the pronaos. This reveals the agricultural tradition of this complex. The ramp, an innovation in the Palladian villas, was necessary for transportation to the granaries by wheelbarrows loaded with food products and other goods. The wide ramp leads up to the loggia which takes the form of a column portico crowned by a gable – a temple front which Palladio applied to secular buildings. As in the case with the Villa Badoer, the loggia does not stand out from the core of the building as an entrance hall, but is retracted into it. The emphasis of simplicity extends to the column order of the loggia, for which Palladio chose the extremely plain Tuscan order. Plain windows embellish the piano nobile as well as the attic. The central building of the villa is framed by two symmetrical long, lower colonnaded wings, or barchesses, which originally housed agricultural facilities, like granaries, cellars, and other service areas. This was a working villa like Villa Badoer and a number of the other designs by Palladio. Both wings end with tall dovecotes which are structures that house nesting holes for domesticated pigeons. An arcade on the wings face the garden, consisting of columns that have rectangular blocks for the bases and capitols. The west barchesse also contains a chapel. The barchesses merge with the central residence, forming one architectural unit. This typological format of a villa-farm was invented by Palladio and can be found at Villa Barbaro and Villa Baroer. Andrea Palladio emphasises the usefulness of the lay-out in his treatise. He points out that the grain stores and work areas could be reached under cover, which was particularly important. Also, it was necessary for the Villa Emo's size to correspond to the returns obtained by good management. These returns must in fact have been considerable, for the side-wings of the building are unusually long, a visible symbol of prosperity. The Emo family introduced the cultivation of maize on their estate (and the plant, still new in Europe, is depicted in one of Zelotti's frescoes). In contrast to the traditional cultivation of millet, considerably higher returns could be obtained from the maize. It is not clear if the long walk, made of large square paving-stones, which leads to the front of the house, served a practical purpose. It seems to be a fifteenth-century threshing floor. However, Palladio advised that threshing should not