Fontego dei Turchi

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Façade of the Fontego dei Turchi 2011

The Fontego dei Turchi (Italian: Fondaco dei Turchi ) is a palace in Venice that dates back to around 1225. It is located on the Grand Canal in the Santa Croce sestiere , opposite the San Marcuola church and in the immediate vicinity of the millet granary ( Fontego del Megio ) from the 15th century. The address is Santa Croce 1730. For some time it served as a trading house for Ottoman traders who the Venetians generally referred to as "Turks". Today it is owned by the city and houses the Natural History Museum of the City of Venice .

history

The Pesaro family

The history of the building can be traced back to the early 13th century. Giacomo Palmieri, who came to Venice from Pesaro around 1225 , had it built, following the family tradition of the Pesaro family. In fact, a Palmmierus de Pesaro appears in the sources in 1248 and 1250 , but he did not live in the sestiere of San Giacomo dall'Orio, but in Santa Fosca. It is certain that in 1309 the palace belonged to a member of the Pesaro family, one of the most influential Venetian families. Palmieri considers her family tradition to be one of her members. In 1309 it appears in the will of Angelo Pesaro, who bequeathed part of the building to his son Nicolò. This Angelo was already living in the building around 1299.

Republic property: Casa del Duca di Ferrara

Apparently there had already been divisions due to inheritance in 1309, which presumably others followed, which were explicitly forbidden in 1377. The four owners jointly sold the palace to the Republic of Venice in 1381 , presumably because they had overstrained the forced loans (imprestiti) to finance the Chioggia war against Genoa .

Side facade

The government used the building as a yard for the Count of Ferrara , Niccolo d'Este, and was accordingly after the Este Dukes had risen, Casa del Duca di Ferrara . The palace was often used in the 15th century as accommodation for the envoy, later the ambassador of Ferrara. The ground floor (piantereno) and the mezzanine were rented separately by the Republic.

In the upper part, where the portego was located, a magnificent hall, the Byzantine emperors Manuel II (1400, 1403) and John VIII. Palaiologos (1423 and 1438) stayed during their visits to the city. Emperor Friedrich III. lived here in 1452 and 1469, as did Cesare Borgia (1499) and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (1502). The Ufficio alle Rason Vecchie made the accounting for these complex visits .

The Republic also took over the Ferrara part of the palace during two wars, in 1482 and 1509 when Ferrara joined the League of Cambrai . From 1509 to 1531 Venice initially used the palace to receive refugees from the Ferrara area. In 1512 the republic gave the palace to the now allied Pope and former opponent Julius II. Venice continued to use the lower floors, and after the death of the Pope also the rest of the building. In 1517, however, Julius' successor, Leo X, appointed a legate to live in the palace. This Altobello Averoldo , Bishop of Pola , even received lifelong rights to use the entire building from the Pope in 1520. Averoldo had the facade renovated and rented parts of the palace. When the alliances changed again, Venice asked for the palace back for the Estonians, but Averoldo stayed until his death in 1531. Only then did it return to the Estonians.

Modifications by the Estonians

Alfonso I d'Este wanted to demolish the whole building and build a new residence, for which he had already earmarked 50,000 ducats , but it did not materialize. Instead, extensive modifications were made. The Ferrarese now also received the basement, which apparently contained ten apartments that were rented out and brought in 170 ducats a year. Even Henri de Valois , the King of Poland and France , held here in 1574 on, and Maximilian of Austria in 1581. The visit of Alfonso II. D'Este in 1562 left a description of the building.

Lease to Ottoman traders

After the death of the last Duke of Ferrara in 1597 and four years of dispute over ownership of the building, it was sold to Antonio Priuli . In 1621 he leased it to Ottoman traders who used it as a warehouse and residential building (Fontego or Fondaco). Hence the name of the building was Fontego dei Turchi . He had previously rented the two basement floors to Venetians, but the state floor to ambassadors, such as Georg Fugger in the years 1604 and 1608 to 1610.

Vacancy, new ownership by Pesaro, sale and speculative object

During the war for Crete the building was empty from 1645 to 1669, again from 1684. In 1648 the rest of the building was returned to the Pesaro family. It was not until 1751 that an agreement was reached that the Pesaro could rent a third of the building along the Salizada . However, the building generated enormous costs and so the last Pesaro owner to live in London sold the building, which he inherited in 1830, to a real estate speculator named Antonio Busetto in 1838. Despite resistance from the city and the Austrian administration, he demolished two thirds of the building. Only the facade and the rooms immediately behind it remained that held the facade.

The Fontego dei Turchi, Carlo Naya , before 1870
The building in 1870, immediately after the restoration, Carlo Naya, 1870

Acquisition by the municipality, questionable reconstruction

In 1860 the city bought the rest of the building to build a museum . The restoration was directed by Federico Berchet . The three-storey towers, as well as the battlements, go back to his questionable reconstruction. The Austrians donated considerable sums of money to a project in honor of Marco Polo , and after 1866, when Venice came to Italy, the mayor, Prince Giuseppe Giovanelli, was one of the sponsors of the company. The oldest surviving parts of the building with the hall on the land side date from the end of the 12th century, while the extension of the building towards the Grand Canal from the 13th century was largely destroyed in the 19th century and finally restored in a historicizing manner.

Museums

From 1898 to 1920 the building housed the entire collection of Teodoro Correr , after which it was divided. Correr's historical-artistic collection items were transferred to the Procuratie on St. Mark's Square, in the Museo Correr , the natural history-ethnological pieces remained in the Fontego dei Turchi and formed the basis of the Municipal Museum of Natural History .

See also

literature

  • Juergen Schulz: The New Palaces of Medieval Venice , Pennsylvania State University 2004, 133ff.
  • Agostino Sagredo, Federico Berchet: Il Fondaco dei Turchi in Venezia: studi storici ed artistici , Milan 1860
  • Enrico Ratti: Museo civico di Storia Naturale di Venezia. Indice generale delle pubblicazioni (1927-1999) , Museo civico di storia naturale di Venezia 2000

Web links

Commons : Fondaco dei Turchi (Venice)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Edoardo Arslan : Gothic Architecture in Venice , Phaidon, London 1971, p. 18.
  2. ^ Inauguration del Fondaco dei Turchi in Venezia , in: Archivio Storico Italiano , ser. 3a, Vol. 9.1 (1869), p. 213.

Coordinates: 45 ° 26 ′ 31.2 "  N , 12 ° 19 ′ 43.2"  E