Palazzo Contarini Fasan, known as Casa di Desdemona, is a Venetian palace, located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal.
Palazzo Contarini is a peculiar 15th century building that belonged to the Contarini family. Over the centuries it has been affected by a legend that traditionally makes it the home of Desdemona, a character in Shakespeare's Othello.
Small building, it has a facade developed in height.
The opening,
the maximum expression of Venetian Gothic architecture, highlights the
three levels: the ground floor consists of three small rectangular
windows (there is no access to the water); on the first floor there is a
three-mullioned lancet window with a balcony, the openings of which are
supported by small white stone columns; on the second floor two ogival
single-lancet windows.
Between the two lancet windows, under a small
square opening, there is a large coat of arms of the Contarini family in
bas-relief.
The top of the facade is crossed by an indented
frame, below which the traces of the fifteenth-century frescoes that
once embellished the surface survive.
On the left side an "overpass"
connects the palace with the adjacent building: the presence of a Gothic
lancet window, modeled on those of the facade, is peculiar.