The history of Leoni Montanari Palace begins in 1678, when Giovanni Leoni Montanari decided to have a large residence built on the same site where his family already owned some buildings. The Leoni Montanari family had reached a solid financial status by producing, and trading in, fabrics. In those years, they were seeking a higher social rank, and repeatedly asked the municipality of Vicenza to be admitted to the nobility. The building of the palace was therefore intended as eloquent evidence of their aspirations, and of the new role they were seeking in the city’s life. This situation was a determining factor for the peculiar style of the palace, which is the only baroque residence in Vicenza – a city otherwise faithful to the classicist teaching of the architect Andrea Palladio. While the choice of an architectural style so foreign to Vicenza was intended to shock the public with its originality, it also marked a break with the definitely conservative taste of the local aristocracy. While the documentation found so far in the archives has not allowed to identify the authors with certainty yet, we know that the construction was carried out in two distinct phases, and was completed during the second decade of the seventeenth century.