Palazzo Zaguri, formerly known as Palazzo Pasqualini, is a 14th century Venetian palace, located in Campo San Maurizio, in the San Marco district. The building closes the field to the east, giving its name to the adjacent bridge which connects the area of San Maurizio to that of Santa Maria del Giglio.
The palace was erected between the 14th and 15th centuries by the
will of the Pasqualini family, originally from Milan, who accumulated
much wealth with the silk trade. The events of the foundation of the
building, as well as being told by the chronicles of the time, are also
testified by the heraldic coat of arms of the Pasqualinis still visible
above the facade, which bears the letter P with three underlying bars.
Another noble symbol of the family can be seen above the well ring in
the inner courtyard.
The Pasqualinis, sensitive to the call of
art, commissioned many sculptures and paintings from renowned artists
active in Venice between 1400 and 1500. Within a few decades they thus
created an important art collection, housed in the rooms of their palace
in Campo San Maurizio. Among the works in the Pasqualini collection,
some paintings by Gentile da Fabriano stood out, some works from the
workshop of Titian, and a couple of portraits, both painted in 1475 by
Antonello da Messina during his stay in Venice: the portrait of the
wealthy Venetian jeweler Michele Vianello, and that of a family member,
Alvise Pasqualini. The famous 16th-century art scholar Marcantonio
Michiel left testimony of the magnificence of the art gallery with
enthusiastic words.
He described the presence of a large painting
relating to the Last Supper, which he attributes to Titian's workshop:
part of it, depicting a head portrayed in a natural position, had been
created by Giorgione. He adds information relating to works created by
Gentile da Fabriano: a gilded stucco and a portrait of a young man in
clerical dress. Even a head of St. James was made by Giorgione's
workshop, using the portrait of Christ in St. Rocco, while Giovanni
Bellini created a half-figure of the Madonna with Child. Two heads, one
of M. Alvise Pasqualino father of M. Antonio, the other of Michiel
Vianello, were made by Antonello da Messina in 1475: he describes the
liveliness of his gaze.
In 1496, the Pasqualini palace hosted the
Montenegrin prince Giorgio Cernovich and his wife (daughter of Antonio
Erizzo), fleeing his principality, for a long time. Due to a plot
hatched by his brother, the prince's lands in northern Albania were
taken by the Turks. The prince thus took refuge in Venice where he
settled and where he was granted access to the city patriciate.
The Pasqualinis kept ownership of the building until 1521, when Antonio
Pasqualini sold it for 5400 ducats to Alvise Priuli. Thus passing the
property to a branch of the Priuli, in 1565 a part of the building was
sold by Giacomo Priuli, nephew of Alvise, to the famous jurisconsult
Vincenzo Pellegrini, whose sister Marina had married Girolamo Zaguri for
the first time. The property of this part of the building passed to the
latter's family, the Zaguri, by testamentary disposition. The other part
of the palace remained in the Priuli family for a couple of centuries,
and was ceded in the 18th century to the Zaguri themselves, who in 1740
"were able to declare to the Dieci Savii sopra le Decime that they owned
the entire palace".
The Zaguri family, to whom we owe the current
name of the palace, was originally from Cattaro, where they were known
by the surname Saraceni. The Zaguris moved to Venice towards the end of
the 15th century. In 1504 they obtained Venetian citizenship, and in
1646 the patriciate. At the beginning of the 19th century Pietro Antonio
Zaguri had the church of San Maurizio rebuilt, not far from the palace.
The Zaguri family died out in 1810, with the death of the last
descendant of the male line, the man of letters Pietro II Marco Zaguri.
The building thus became the property of the Braganzes, and in the 20th
century to the municipality of Venice, which put it up for sale in 2007.
Today the building is once again privately owned. Recent works have made
it possible to find part of a well present in some sixteenth-century
maps intact.
The building is characterized by the extraordinary presence of two
facades of equal or almost equal importance, both in the Gothic style:
one overlooks Campo San Maurizio, the other on Fondamenta Corner Zaguri.
Gothic building from the end of the 14th century, it has lost some
original features, especially on the ground floor.
Front façade:
overlooking Campo San Maurizio: it has two mullioned windows, of which
the most prestigious is the lower one. Characterized by the presence of
five holes, it is flanked by numerous other single-lancet windows. It
overlooks Palazzo Molin and Palazzo Bellavite. At the right end of the
façade there is an ogival portal.
Rear facade: overlooking
foundations Corner Zaguri: it has the remains of a cave, an indication
of the posterior nature of the pedestrian street on which it stands, and
two mullioned windows among which the imposing quadrifora on the first
noble floor stands out, flanked by two single an exaphora: framed with a
checkered frieze, it is divided by three columns with rosette capitals
and by two side pillars.