The Ca' d'Oro is a well-known palace in Venice, located in the
Cannaregio district and overlooking the Grand Canal, whose name derives
from the fact that originally some parts of the facade were covered with
gold, a finish that was part of a complex polychromy, now disappeared,
considered one of the greatest examples of Venetian flowery Gothic.
Since 1927 it has been used as a museum as the seat of the Galleria
Franchetti.
Since December 2014, the Ministry for Cultural
Heritage and Activities has managed it through the Veneto Museum
Complex, which in December 2019 became the Regional Directorate of
Museums.
The client Marino Contarini
The history of this factory finds its
origins in Marino Contarini, a personality belonging to a wealthy doge
family, even if more skilled merchant than politician. Contarini married
Soradamor Zeno at a very young age, whose family owned a vast property
on the Grand Canal, near the confinement of Santa Sofia, which also
included a building of such dimensions as to be defined as the Domus
Magna. Following a family quarrel, Contarini had to buy the artifact
from the Zeno family, without using his wife's dowry.
After the
death of his wife, Contarini began an ambitious work of complete
renovation of the ancient building: in 1421 Contarini then contacted the
Milanese Matteo Raverti and the following year the Venetians Giovanni
and Bartolomeo Bono, even if the works only began in 1424.
The
client negotiated for years with the Lombard and Venetian workers, so
much so that some argue that Marino Contarini is responsible for the
final appearance of the building. Marino Contarini can be attributed in
particular for the decision to keep some reminiscences of the previous
building: the portico on the water must be very similar, at least
planimetrically, to that of the previous building, while two
thirteenth-century friezes, re-installed vertically , they certainly
belong to the Zeno palace. Some constructive inconsistencies are
certainly due to the will of Contarini: the twisted columns, which run
along the two corners of the facade creating a cordon, however do not
connect with the crowning; moreover, the center line of the building,
marked by the three highest pinnacles of the crowning, does not coincide
with the apparent center line of the facade, underlined by the vertical
friezes placed to the right of the loggias.
The Lombard and
Venetian workers
Two different workshops worked at the same time in
the Venetian building site, whose imprint is recognizable in the variety
of decorations: the one led by Matteo Raverti, in which workers from the
Como area were active, and the one led by Giovanni Bono and his son
Bartolomeo, made up almost exclusively of Venetian workers. Even if the
two workshops worked at the same time, some inconsistencies in the
decorative apparatuses suggest that they mostly operated separately,
even if directed by the principal program of the client.
Matteo
Raverti was mostly known for having worked on the construction site of
the Milan Cathedral, where he created numerous valuable sculptures, in
particular that of San Babila. Already in 1410 he was probably in
Venice, where he worked on the decoration of the facade of the Doge's
Palace and on the crowning of the Ducal Chapel. Also attributed to him
are some sculptures present in various Venetian churches, as well as the
Borromeo tomb in the church of Sant'Elena, unfortunately lost. Giovanni
and Bartolomeo Bono worked with their workshop as builders and sculptors
in numerous Venetian factories, even if the best known work was
certainly the facade of Palazzo Ducale in which they worked together
with other masters, in particular the Porta della Carta is attributed to
them . Valuable works by Bartolomeo are also the portals of the churches
of Santa Maria dell'Orto and Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
A well-known
French painter who lived for a long time in Venice, Zuanne de Franza,
also worked on the Ca' d'Oro construction site, who in 1431 was
commissioned to strengthen the marbles and stones with color, and to
underline each element with gold , red, blue and black. Nothing remains
of his work today, erased by the wear and tear of time or by
restorations. The painter was also entrusted with the task of decorating
three internal rooms, but this work too has been lost.
The work
of Baron Franchetti
The building remained the property of the
Contarini family until Marino's granddaughters, after which it underwent
numerous changes of owners, who carried out numerous renovations of the
internal subdivisions and various other alterations. The building was
also enlarged with the acquisition of some buildings at the back and
some rooms in the building next door. In the mid-nineteenth century the
building was then restored by the engineer Giovan Battista Meduna at the
behest of the owner at the time, Alessandro Trubetzkoi, but underwent
further restoration a few years later following a new change of
ownership.
At the end of the nineteenth century the house became
the property of Baron Giorgio Franchetti, following a considerable
outlay of 170,000 lire: the baron wanted to undertake a careful
philological restoration of the building, attempting to bring it as
close as possible to the fifteenth-century morphology, but in 1916
Franchetti stipulated an agreement with the Italian State in which he
undertook to sell the building at the end of the works in exchange for
their financial coverage. These restorations were rather scrupulous,
even if they obviously could not return the building to its original
appearance, furthermore some parts are reconstructions that are
difficult to judge, in particular the courtyard staircase and the portal
that acts as an entrance to the rio. Among the works that he had carried
out there was also the demolition of superstructures on the façade, the
reopening of the square windows, and the creation from scratch of the
floors with designs inspired by the lost original ones. The baron had
some works of art belonging to his collection placed inside, it was in
fact in his will that the building become a museum, losing its function
as a civil residence. After his death in 1922, the restoration work was
completed and on 18 January 1927 the gallery that takes his name was
inaugurated.
The planimetric structure of the factory does not differ too much
from that of the typical house-warehouse of the Venetian patricians. The
striking asymmetry of the layout is determined by the construction
practice of the time which envisaged the re-use of the foundations of
the previous building, without expanding the adjacent lots. In this case
also the maintenance of the internal courtyard and the cistern excavated
in it is crucial for the planimetric layout, since it has bound the plan
to develop in a C shape around an open courtyard, in the center of which
is positioned the large curb well in Verona brocatelle marble, created
by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bono in 1427, who sculpted on three sides,
among rich foliage, the female allegories of Justice, Fortitude and
Charity. As usual in Venetian residences, the large loggias on the
façade correspond internally to long halls, called portegos, which cross
the building in all its depth.
Palazzo Ducale, which was still
being completed during the construction of the Ca' d'Oro, was certainly
an important design reference: the multiplication of openings in the
loggias on the noble floors with respect to the portico on the ground
floor according to a 1:2 ratio and the crenellations that close the
facade at the top derive, at least as a constructive idea, certainly
from the most important Venetian factory of the time. If the portico on
the ground floor is very reminiscent of that of the thirteenth-century
ca' da Mosto, the hexaphoras on the upper floors, but also the
quadrifora on the ground floor, were personal reinterpretations of the
loggia of the Palazzo Ducale by Raverti and the Bonos.
The facade is characterized by the marked asymmetry between the left
side, in which three perforated bands overlap (portico for mooring boats
on the ground floor and loggias on the upper floors), and the right
wing, in which the cladded masonry prevails. of precious marbles with
single isolated square openings; the cause of this specificity can be
attributed to the small size of the lot, which did not allow the
construction of the left wing of the building. A frieze from the
previous home of the Zenos has been inserted between the left and right
sides of the façade. The only element that gives continuity to the
façade, conditioning and dominating it, is the large cornice with the
battlements above. To close it on the sides there are triple twisted
columns which form like codons on the corners of the facade, however
completely disconnected from the crowning.
The portico on the
ground floor is open with five large arches over the water, with the
central one dilated with respect to the others, so much so that it has a
lowered arch, recalling the porticoes of Byzantine origin. It is a
reminiscence of the thirteenth-century house of the Zenos, and does not
present any significant innovations. Between the portico on the water
and the internal one there is a quadrifora of considerable interest, the
work of Giovanni Bono: double twisted columns separate the openings; in
line with the columns, above them, cross-shaped tracery; on the extrados
of the arches of the openings two quadrilobes. Upstairs the loggia of
Reverti, composed of a hexaphora which appears to be a novelty for the
time, as above the quadrilobes, in line with the vertices of the arches
of the openings, we find semi-quadrilobes, with which Raverti obtained a
lively chiaroscuro effect, exaggerated by the mouldings. The capitals of
the columns with fat leaves that rise in a spiral are reinterpreted in
an original way, breaking the classic contemporary Venetian symmetry.
Even the balustrades between the columns have a strong decorative
spirit. The loggia on the top floor is made up of a further hexaphora
with cross-shaped tracery in line with the columns, just like in the
quadrifora on the ground floor, although in this case we find a
semi-quadrilobe in line with the vertices of the arches of the openings
in locus of the two quadrilobes.
During the works undertaken by Giorgio Franchetti, the marble floor was created in the portico on the ground floor. It covers an area of 350 m² using the opus sectile and opus tessellatum techniques. The geometric motifs that make up the decoration are inspired by the medieval floors of the churches of the Venetian lagoon such as the basilica of San Marco in Venice, the basilica of Santi Maria e Donato in Murano and the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello. However, there are also many points of contact with the Cosmatesque decorations of the 12th and 13th centuries. There are also themes taken from the Byzantine decorative repertoire. Giorgio Franchetti personally designed the geometries of the flooring and was also involved in its material construction. It should be underlined that for this work Franchetti chose not to use marble and stones of modern quarrying, but to use the most famous and precious types since Roman antiquity, including ancient red porphyry, serpentine, green onion, giallo antico, pavonazzetto, verde antico, marmo luculleo and many others.
The gallery houses the collection of works of art collected by
Giorgio Franchetti during his life. Following the donation to the
Italian State in 1916 and in view of the preparation of the museum, the
Franchetti collection was joined by some state collections from which
most of the bronzes and sculptures on display come, as well as numerous
Venetian and Flemish paintings.
Among the most valuable works are
the San Sebastiano by Andrea Mantegna, the Portrait of Marcello Durazzo
by Antoon van Dyck, the Double portrait by Tullio Lombardo, the Venus in
the mirror by Titian, two views by Francesco Guardi, the Crucifixion by
Jan van Eyck, the sleeping Venus by Paris Bordone and what remains of
Titian's frescoes painted on the side facade of the Fondaco dei
Tedeschi, among which Judith stands out. The three canvases with the
Stories of the Virgin from the Scuola degli Albanesi are by Vittore
Carpaccio and his workshop.
In addition to the exhibition halls,
the museum houses various laboratories for the conservation and
restoration of works of art.