Ca 'Farsetti

Facade of Ca 'Farsetti, 2004

The Ca 'Farsetti , also called Palazzo Dandolo Farsetti or Ca' Farsetti già Dandolo , is a city palace built after 1200 on the Venetian Grand Canal , near the Rialto Bridge . This makes the building one of the oldest in the city. The building was built under Renier Dandolo , the son of Doge Enrico Dandolo , and was acquired by the Contarini from 1440, who sold it to the Farsetti family in 1670. The building acquired by the municipality has served as the town hall since 1826 . The urge to harmonize the facades and the number of storeys as well as to restore an “original state” that is not exactly known, created an appearance that corresponds more to the ideas of the 19th century of the Middle Ages.

history

On April 3, 1200, Ranieri (Renier) Dandolo, the son of Doge Enrico Dandolo , acquired a vacant lot near the Rialto Bridge from Benetto Falier. This began the construction work on the palace, which was completed before 1208/09. According to tradition, Enrico Dandolo is said to have marble from Constantinople , which was conquered during the Fourth Crusade , brought to Venice in order to build it into his home palazzo. On the grand staircase (scalone d'onore) of the Ca 'Farsetti on July 21, 1827 a stone with the inscription: "Enrico Dandolo, conquistatore di Costantinopoli, questo palazzo full eretto - 1203." A number of travel guides still claim the palace dates from the 12th century.

In October 1237 the Giudici del Esaminador accepted a lawsuit by Marco Dandolo against the transfer of property, including that of the palace, to Nicolota Bucadomo, quondam Leonardo. On September 7, 1276, the Giudici del Piovego allowed the Dandolo and the Boccasio to expand their houses so far that an alley two feet wide remained open to passers-by. But that apparently did not resolve the dispute between the neighboring families, because on September 26, 1335, the said Giudici allowed the Dandolo to expand their house as much as the Boccasio had done.

Around this time the increasing fragmentation of the Dandolo property began. The Doge Andrea Dandolo had confiscated part of the house to compensate for unpaid debts of another Andrea Dandolo, quondam Renier. Fantin, the Doge's son, received the “Cha 'Dandulo” instead of the bond of 6,000 Libra ad grossos on the occasion of his emancipation; this in turn set his brother, miles Leonardo 1356, as a universal heir. In 1365, Leonardo signed over part of his wife Morosina's house as security for her furnishings.

Between 1440 and 1445 the procurator Federigo Contarini bought the house for 7,666 ducats with all shops and apartments. A third of it came from the possession of a Fantin Dandolo, the remaining shares from that of the nephews Giulio and Tomaso Contarini, who had also acquired their shares from Fantin in earlier times. In 1449 four of the procurator's children, namely Ambrogio, Gian Alvise, Michele and Catarina, took over the share of their brother Carlo because he was over-indebted. On September 26, 1465, Ambrogio and Gian Alvise divided the house and its shops. In the tax return of Ambrogio's son Federigo, 29 leased shops appear in the house. The brothers Federigo and Paolo, the last son of Gian Alvise, owned the house together, with 23 shops appearing in Paolo's tax return. In 1538 ownership within the family changed again. Federigo Contarini, son of Ambrogio and grandson of the procurator Federigo, listed 35 shops and apartments for half of the Ca 'Farsetti, while the other half of the palace was now owned by his cousins Paolo and Federigo Contarini, the son of Gian Alvise.

The palaces in the 1960s

The Palazzi Loredan (left) and Farsetti, 2004

In 1543, the two-part house, especially the facade, was heavily rebuilt, as Stefano Magno reports, who describes the palace as “palazzo a San Lucha sul Canal grando”, but which is now called “Cha 'Contarini” after the owner family. On May 12, 1546 a surveyor from the Magistrato al Piovego stated that Loredangasse (Calle Loredan) between Riva del Carbon and Salizada di San Luca (a paved alley) had been greatly widened in preparation for construction work. The client was Gian Alvise Contarini, son of the above-mentioned Paolo, grandson of Gian Alvise, great-grandson of the procurator Federigo. Federigo, in turn, son of Francesco, grandson of Federigo and also great-grandson of the procurator, listed 28 shops and apartments in his tax return in 1566.

This Federigo († October 22, 1613), who had renovated the house, was increased by the authorities in 1566 in his lease value from 45 to 59 ducats per year. He was procurator of San Marco by 1582 at the latest and listed the whole house in his tax return, but only 24 shops and apartments. Federigo had appointed his three daughters as universal heirs on August 8, 1612, more than a year before his death. Bianca, Catarina and Marina married Carlo Ruzzini, Nicolò Bragadin and Zaccaria Grimani, respectively.

Marina Bragadin, meanwhile married to Barbon Morosini, sold the Casa to Anton Francesco Farsetti on January 10, 1670 for 22,000 ducats. The house remained in the older line of Farsetti until 1774, but with the death of Filippo Vincenzo Farsetti it came to the younger line in the person of Daniele Filippo Farsetti. His son Anton fled from the creditors to Russia in 1804, completely in debt, leaving his wife Elena Andriana Da Ponte behind. The latter sold the palace to the municipality on October 28, 1826 for 84,000 lire. Andrea Tirali (1657–1737), a Venetian architect, built the elegant scalone . In the 18th century, the Accademia Farsetti promoted and trained artists, including the young Antonio Canova .

From 1832 to 1835 the dilapidated balcony at the front of the building had to be replaced. In 1838 the attic windows were relocated and their number increased from nine to eleven in order to adapt their arrangement to the order of the windows on the floor below. The sides of the building towards Calle Loredan and Calle Cavalli were also redesigned from 1857 to 1861, and the windows were rearranged so that they were of a uniform size and were arranged vertically or horizontally to one another. From 1871 to 1874 attempts were made to restore the alleged original condition. The balconies on the main facade were removed, as were the doors at street level that were built in in the 18th century. The horizontal division of the ground floor windows and arcades into two was also removed. The ground floor has now been clad with marble. Another intervention took place between 1892 and 1899 when the rear wings on the south side of the Farsetti staircase were raised from four to five floors in order to adapt them to the front.

literature

Juergen Schulz: The New Palaces of Medieval Venice , The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.

Web links

Commons : Ca 'Farsetti - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Ca 'Farsetti Palace , website by Jan-Christoph Rößler
Ca 'Farsetti (Municipio) , Grand Canal di Venezia

Remarks

↑ The information on the history is taken from Juergen Schulz: The New Palaces of Medieval Venice , The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, pp. 165–171. The basis of his work on pre-Gothic are five palaces, namely the preserved Ca 'Loredan, Ca' Farsetti and the Fontego dei Turchi as well as the no longer existing Ca 'del Papa, the former residence of the Patriarch of Grado in San Silvestro, and the Ca' Barozzi in San Moisè. Schulz rejects the previous theories about the origin of the Venetian palace, i. That is, from a Byzantine or late antique, even Islamic derivation, or from a three-aisled church ( Wladimiro Dorigo ). He rather derives it from the widespread hall-storey house , the facade of which, however, was now the long side, as in the case of the Ca 'Farsetti this required a 90 ° rotation of the building. The "Byzantine impression" did not arise from the building structure, but from the decoration on the facade. He also rejects the idea of the casa fondaco, the home and warehouse of the long-distance traders, rather they stored their goods in warehouses, especially on Rialto.

↑ Wladimiro Dorigo dealt with the marble spolia from Byzantium : Spolia marmorei d'oltremare a Venezia (secoli XI – XIV) , in: Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell'Arte 28 (2004) 1–13.

↑ Espedita Grandesso: I portals medievali di Venezia , Edizioni Helvetia, 1989, p 132nd

^ Alvise Zorzi : I palazzi veneziani , Magnus, 1989, p. 50.

^ Antonio Salvadori: Architect's guide to Venice , Butterworth Architecture, 1990, p. 31.

45.4364 12.3339Coordinates: 45 ° 26 ′ 11 ″ N , 12 ° 20 ′ 2 ″ E

[1] The information on the history is taken from Juergen Schulz: The New Palaces of Medieval Venice , The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, pp. 165–171. The basis of his work on pre-Gothic are five palaces, namely the preserved Ca 'Loredan, Ca' Farsetti and the Fontego dei Turchi as well as the no longer existing Ca 'del Papa, the former residence of the Patriarch of Grado in San Silvestro, and the Ca' Barozzi in San Moisè. Schulz rejects the previous theories about the origin of the Venetian palace, i. That is, from a Byzantine or late antique, even Islamic derivation, or from a three-aisled church ( Wladimiro Dorigo ). He rather derives it from the widespread hall-storey house , the facade of which, however, was now the long side, as in the case of the Ca 'Farsetti this required a 90 ° rotation of the building. The "Byzantine impression" did not arise from the building structure, but from the decoration on the facade. He also rejects the idea of the casa fondaco, the home and warehouse of the long-distance traders, rather they stored their goods in warehouses, especially on Rialto.