Palazzo Barbaro in San Vidal is a complex formed by two palaces in Venice (Palazzo Barbaro Curtis and Palazzo Barbaro), located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal between Palazzo Franchetti and Palazzo Benzon Foscolo, opposite Palazzo Balbi Valier.
The oldest part of the structure, called Palazzo Barbaro Curtis (on
the left) dates back to the year 1425 and was built to be the noble
residence of the noble Spiera family by Bartolomeo Bon: when this family
died out it was bought by Zaccaria Barbaro.
The building on the
right, simply called Palazzo Barbaro (to distinguish it from the old
part), is an extension from the 1690s, designed by Antonio Gaspari, the
architect of Ca' Zenobio degli Armeni: it houses a prestigious ballroom
still magnificently preserved. In this new part the hand of Giambattista
Tiepolo was requested for the internal decoration, however it was lost
during the 19th century.
In the second half of the 19th century,
after the Barbaro family had died out, the buildings were bought by the
Curtis-Conte family (still the owners today), who, in addition to
providing for the restoration, hosted the great writer Henry James. At
the turn of 2000 and 2001 the facade was completely renovated and
painted.
Palazzo Barbaro Curtis
A perfect example of
fourteenth-fifteenth-century Venetian Gothic style, the old building is
a three-story building with a mezzanine, to which a mezzanine was later
added in the attic.
The façade, according to a scheme that
reaches its apex in Ca' Bernardo, is opened by two portals on the ground
floor (the one on the left ogival, the central one rectangular) and on
the two noble floors by ogival four-light windows (in a central
position), to which flanked by a pair of single lancet windows, all
inserted in a quadrangular stone frame. The decorations on the first
noble floor appear more recent than those on the second.
The
characteristic paterae and tiles are inserted to embellish the surface
visible from the Grand Canal.
Barbarian palace
The new part,
narrower and taller, is a four-storey Baroque building, whose façade is
characterized on the second noble floor by a hole pattern made up of
four round arched openings, with a keystone mask and a balustrade: the
two central ones are form a mullioned window.
Another
semicircular mullioned window is located on the third floor, under the
small pediment that centrally dominates the facade.
Internally on
the main floors, despite the removal of Tiepolo's works, the stucco
decoration by Abbondio Stazio should be mentioned.