Allied with the Thiene, the Porto were one of the city's rich and powerful families, and the palaces of the family's various branches were ranked along the Contrada which today still bears their name. Iseppo was an influential personality, with various responsibilities in the public administration of the city, responsibilities which on more than one occasion were intertwined with the assignments entrusted to Palladio. Relations between the two must very probably have been closer than between patron and architect, if we consider that thirty years after the project for Iseppo's city palace Palladio designed and began to build a great villa for him at Molina di Malo, subsequently never completed.