Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Alongside the exit staircase you'll notice charming marble heraldic symbols of kissing
doves and knotted-tail dogs, dating from the building's history as a ducal palace and inter-
national trading house. The dukes of Ferrara had the run of this 12th-century mansion un-
til they were elbowed aside in 1621 to make room for Venice's most important trading
partner: Turkey. Turkish merchants were a constant in Venice throughout the maritime
powers' rocky romance, celebrated with favoured-nation trading status and inter-Adriatic
weddings, and tested by periodic acts of piracy, invasion and looting.
Dubbed the Fondaco dei Turchi (Turkish Trading House), this building remained rented
out to the Turks until 1858. Afterwards, a disastrous renovation indulged 19th-century ar-
chitectural fancies, including odd crenellations that made the gracious Gothic building re-
semble a prison. Luckily, the renovation spared the courtyard and charming back garden,
which is open during museum hours and ideal for picnics.
PALAZZO MOCENIGO
MAP
MUSEUM
GOOGLE MAP
( 041 72 17 98;
http://mocenigo.visitmuve.it
; Salizada di San Stae 1992, Santa Croce; adult/reduced €5/3.50, or
with Museum Pass; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun Apr-Oct, to 4pm Nov-Mar; San Stae)
Hello, gorgeous: from
18th-century duchess
andrienne
(hip-extending dresses) to Anne Hathaway's mega-
ruffled Versace Venice Film Festival ballgown, Palazzo Mocenigo's historic, head-turning
fashion will leave you feeling glamorous by association, if a tad underdressed. Necklines
plunge in the
Red Living Room
, lethal corsets come undone in the
Contessa's Bedroom
and men's
paisley knee-breeches reveal leg in the
Dining Room
.
Costume dramas unfold across the piano nobile of the Mocenigo family's swanky
Grand Canal palace, much as they did at 18th-century A-list Venetian parties held here.
Yet even when flirting shamelessly under Jacopo Guarana's 1787
Allegory of Nuptial
Bliss
ceiling in the Green Living Room, wise guests minded their tongues: the Mocenigos
reported philosopher and sometime houseguest Giordano Bruno for heresy to the Inquisi-
tion, who subsequently tortured and burned the betrayed philosopher at the stake in Rome.
PONTE DI RIALTO
( Rialto-Mercato)
A superb feat of engineering, Antonio da Ponte's 1592 Istrian stone span
cost 250,000 gold ducats to construct - a staggering sum that puts Calatrava Bridge cost
overruns into perspective. When crowds of shutterbugs clear out around sunset, the
bridge's south side offers a romantic view of black gondolas pulling up to golden Grand
Canal
palazzi
at striped moorings.
BRIDGE
