Ca' Giustinian is a palace in Venice, located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal.
The palace was built on commission from the Giustinians, one of the
most illustrious families of the Venetian patriciate, in the second half
of the fifteenth century, in place of a pre-existing building, in which
Lorenzo Giustinian, the first patriarch of Venice, had lived in the
first half of the century.
In the seventeenth century it passed
to the Morosinis, until 1820, when the palace was transformed into the
Albergo all'Europa, in which Théophile Gautier, Marcel Proust and
Giuseppe Verdi were hosted, among others.
On 19 October 1866, in
a room of the Europa hotel, the French plenipotentiary general Edmond Le
Bœuf signed the formal deed of cession of Veneto, a prelude to the
Veneto plebiscite of the following 21-22 October.
After being
purchased by the municipality, the building underwent a complete
restoration and today houses the offices of the Venice Biennale.
The large facade of Palazzo Giustinian consists of four floors
divided by string course frames, in Gothic style.
The main part
of the building was connected, through the filling of a calle in the
late fifteenth century, to a building on its left: since then the two
structures have formed a single one.
Most of the openings, mostly
ogival, are single lancet windows framed in white stone frames on the
brick surface.
Those in the central sector stand out: on the
ground floor a round arched portal to which two tympanum single-lancet
windows are paired; it is superimposed on the two noble floors and on
the top floor, from a later period, by three levels of four-light
windows, all with protruding balustrades.
Note the presence of a
serliana on the ground floor of the integrated building on the left.
The top of the facade, crossed by an indented cornice, is terminated
by a long balustrade which closes off a terrace with a view of the last
stretch of the Grand Canal, Punta della Dogana and the basin of San
Marco.