Towards the end of his life, Palladio received the opportunity to build a church, the Tempietto Barbaro, to serve the Villa Barbaro and the estate village. Tempietto Barbaro was built by the orders of Marcantonio Barbaro, and the patrician's name appears on the entablature. Legend has it that Palladio died at Maser while working on the building.

At Maser the patron and the architect agreed on a centralised building closely following classical models. In some other church commissions such as the Redentore (which is a related design to the Tempietto), Palladio had been obliged to go against his inclinations and provide a long nave, but at Maser he had a patron who preferred a centralised plan. The connection of a temple front to a domed building refers to the Pantheon. A portico that is drawn out a long way, and has unusually steep proportions, leads along with the diagonal parts of the gable to two small bell-towers, which for their part pass on the upward-moving trend to the dome. The five spaces between the columns are framed by pillars, which are like the middle four columns in their entasis and tapering. The facade probably faced on to a small square originally.

The interior has stucco decorations attributed to Alessandro Vittoria. An entablature is finished with a rich decoration of cherubs and tendrils and creates a transition to the dome vault, along with a balustrade.

Palladio alternates deep niches on a rectangular ground-plan and closed wall areas with figure tabernacles between the eight regular half-columns. The lower part of the building is completed by an unbroken continuous ledge, whose profile- three flat bands which are contrasted with each other by ovolo moulding- is taken over from the arcade arches. The architect contrasts two forms of cylinder and semi-sphere by a repeated emphasis on horizontals, and, over and above that, divides them into a palpable terrestrial zone and into a light, celestial one that cannot be precisely gaugued with the eye.