Piano nobile

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Kedleston Hall. The first floor piano nobile is clearly distinguished by its larger windows. It is placed above a rusticated ground floor, and below a secondary floor, it is reached by an external staircase

The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture. This floor contains the principal reception and bedrooms of the house.

The piano nobile is often the first or sometimes the second floor, located above an (often rusticated) ground floor containing minor rooms and service rooms. The reasons for this were so the rooms would have finer views, and more practically to avoid damp. This is especially true in Venice where the piano nobile of the many palazzi is especially obvious from the exterior by virtue of its larger windows and balconies and open loggias. Examples of this are Ca' Foscari, Ca' d'Oro and Palazzo Barbarigo.

Larger windows than those on other floors are usually the most obvious feature of the piano nobile. Often in England and Italy the piano nobile is reached by an ornate outer staircase, which negated the need for the inhabitants of this floor to enter the house by the servant's floor below. Kedleston Hall is an example of this in England, as is Villa Capra in Italy.

Most houses contained a secondary floor above the piano nobile which contained more intimate withdrawing and bedrooms for private use by the family of the house when no honoured guests were present. Above this floor would often be an attic floor containing staff bedrooms.

In Italy, especially in town palazzi, the floor above the piano nobile is sometimes referred to as the "second piano nobile", especially if the loggias and balconies reflect those below on a slightly smaller scale. This term while often used is technically incorrect as the piano nobile always contains the grandest rooms, therefore the secondary floor by its very name cannot be as grand. This term is not used in Britain.

This arrangement of floors continued throughout Europe for as long as large houses continued to be built in the classical styles. This arrangement was designed at Buckingham Palace as recently as the mid 19th century. Holkham Hall, Osterley Park and Chiswick House are 18th century English houses which employed this design.