CA’ D’ORO

Description

Essentials about the Ca’ d’Oro in brief

The palace Ca’ d’Oro (Golden House) on the Grand Canal is certainly one of the most beautiful buildings on the canal, which is not lacking in beautiful buildings. The house owes its name to the elaborate cladding of polychrome marble, the originally generous painting with ultramarine and the gilded stonework on the façade facing the Grand Canal. Today, the Ca’ d’Oro houses the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, which mainly displays Venetian art from the Gothic to the Baroque periods.

The architecture of the Ca’ d’Oro

The Ca’ d’Oro is a significant example of the Venetian Gothic style of the early 15th century. The initial combination of columns and arches was fundamentally changed by the introduction of the tracery to the so-called “flaming Gothic”, in which the former simple arch was reinterpreted as a tracery form and showed a sharp-edged, restless, playful profiling. There was ongoing resistance to this Gothic influence, which can also be seen in this facade. The lower floor shows a completely different arch position, which indicates the beginning of the Renaissance in Venice.

The history of the Ca’ d’Oro

The palace was built between 1421 and 1442 by order of Marino Contarini, procurator at San Marco. The reuse of large parts of the previous Romanesque building resulted in an asymmetrical arrangement of the facade and the rooms. The architect was the prestigious Bartolomeo Buon. After the fall of the Venetian Republic, the palace changed hands several times. It was neglected and threatened to deteriorate in its substance.

In 1895, Baron Giorgio Franchetti acquired the Ca’ d’Oro and had the run-down palace lavishly restored and housed an art collection in the renovated building. In 1915, he donated the house and the collection to the Italian state. In 1927, the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro was founded.

The exhibition in Ca’ d’Oro

The exhibition will feature mostly Venetian art from Gothic to Baroque. The permanent collection includes paintings by Francesco Guardi, Andrea Mantegna, Jacopo da Pontormo and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo. In addition to paintings, sculptures, handicraft objects and carpets are also on display.

The interior decoration of the rooms no longer shows the original appearance of the palace due to the long neglect. Individual rooms were furnished with ceilings from other palaces during the restoration. The rooms themselves were decorated with old Venetian furniture and give an impression of the former splendor of Venetian living culture.