Palazzo Dolfin Manin is a Venetian palace, located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal, not far from the Rialto Bridge and next to Palazzo Bembo, which houses the Venice branch of the Bank of Italy.
Palazzo Dolfin Manin is a 16th century building, built in 1536, i.e.
in conjunction with the desire of the noble Dolfin family to renovate
the pre-existing Venetian residence. Thus, starting from two medieval
buildings, the new structure was built.
For the construction,
begun in 1536, thirty thousand ducats were spent, a very large amount at
the time, for a building designed according to the criteria of the new
Renaissance architecture and which therefore had to have an imprint of
absolute majesty and modernity.
From 1801 Palazzo Dolfin became
the residence of the Manin family, to which the doge Ludovico Manin
belonged, by whose will the palace underwent important modifications and
internal reconstructions. For these modifications the hand of
Giannantonio Selva was required, who eliminated the internal courtyard,
the shops that stood in the portico and replaced the entrance staircase
with a more sumptuous one according to the neoclassical style. Selva
also planned to redo the facade, but the pressures of public opinion at
the time, which opposed the destruction of Sansovino's elegant façade,
made him abandon the idea.
Manin, of Friulian origins, was the
last doge of the Republic of Venice: owner of fabulous incomes but with
a weak and little decision-making character, he was unable to oppose
Napoleon's ultimatum and on 12 May 1797 he accepted the surrender to the
French army. Manin lived another five years segregated at home and
despised by the population who never approved of this gesture.
The building remained the property of the Manin family until 1867; from
that date it passed to the National Bank of the Kingdom and still houses
the Venetian headquarters of the Bank of Italy. Some restorations were
carried out between 1968 and 1971; a further restoration was completed
in 2002.
Exteriors
The facade, a work built in the years 1538-1547 by
the great architect Jacopo Sansovino (already author of Palazzo
Corner on the Grand Canal), is characterized by the whiteness of the
Istrian stone and by the large round arched openings.
The
portico on the ground floor is made up of six large arches, whose
seven supporting pillars correspond to the seven Ionic and
Corinthian semi-columns on the two upper floors.
The two
noble floors have the same opening, made up on the sides by a pair
of windows, each corresponding to an arch on the ground floor, and
centrally by a quadrifora. The appearance of the building appears in
this strict way. Above, the facade is closed off by a large serrated
cornice.
Interior
The interiors were of great artistic
value for the works of Giambattista Tiepolo, which he executed in
1747, for the wedding of Lodovico Manin with Elisabetta Grimani
(1748).
The building has an internal courtyard, modified
several times over the years, in which there is a staircase leading
to the upper floors.