CA’ PESARO

Description

Essentials about the Ca’ Pesaro in brief

The Ca’ Pesaro is a baroque palace at the confluence of the Rio delle Due Torri with the Grand Canal. The Ca’ Pesaro today houses two museums. On the second floor the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna (International Gallery of Modern Art) is located, which exhibits works by 19th and 20th century artists. On the second floor is the Museo d’Arte Orientale (Museum of Oriental Art), which exhibits some 30,000 objects from Asian countries, primarily Japan.

The history and architecture of the Ca’ Pesaro

The history of Ca’ Pesaro goes back to the very wealthy Venetian Doge Giovanni Pesaro, who obliged his family with his last will to finish the palace begun by Baldassare Longhena. The massive structure is located in a place where the Pesaro family owned three houses. After the death of the Doge in 1659, the design of his tomb in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari took priority for ten years. It was only the Doge’s nephew, the procurator Leonardo Pesaro, who succeeded in bringing Longhena back to work on the palace. In 1673 the facade was begun and in 1676 the upper floor with the state rooms was started. In 1682 Longhena died, and the building was completed by his pupil Antonio Gaspari in 1710 according to the original plans.

The marble palace protrudes somewhat into the Grand Canal. Noteworthy is the valuable curved side facade facing the Rio delle Due Torri. On the façade, which is articulated with columns, the traditional vertical tripartite division of older palaces can hardly be recognized. The facade is adorned with rich decorations such as reliefs and grotesque masks. It gives a glimpse of the magnificent interior, of which almost nothing remains today. However, frescoes by Giovanni Battista Pittoni and by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo have been preserved.

After the Pesaro family, Ca’ Pesaro changed hands several times. Finally, the palace was acquired by the Bevilacqua family, who bequeathed the building to the city of Venice in 1899 with the stipulation that it be used as a working and exhibition space for young avant-garde artists. In 1902 the museum in Ca’ Pesaro was finally inaugurated.

The museums in the Ca’ Pesaro

The Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna

The Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna is located on the second floor of the Ca’ Pesaro, the Piano Nobile, which once housed the living and representation rooms of noble families. Today, works by world-famous artists from the 19th and 20th centuries hang here, such as Umberto Boccioni, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore and Giorgio Morandi.

The Museo d’Arte Orientale

The second floor of the Ca’ Pesaro houses another museum, the Museo d’Arte Orientale, which contains around 30,000 objects from various Asian countries, such as China, Indonesia and Japan. The collection was assembled by Prince Henry of Bourbon-Parma during a stay in Asia and became the property of the Italian state at the end of the 19th century.