Palazzo Donà a Sant'Aponal, often known by the simple name of Palazzo Donà or Palazzo Donà dalle Trezze, is a building located in the city of Venice, more precisely located in the San Polo district. It overlooks the Grand Canal between Palazzo Papadopoli and Palazzo Donà della Madoneta.
The building is by far one of the oldest in the city: it was founded
in the mid-13th century. We know for sure that in 1314 it was owned by a
certain Michele Zancani, who accurately describes it in his will and
divides it among four of his five children.
In the fifteenth
century the palace was completely and heavily restructured. Other
interventions dating back to the 17th century made all references to the
original form disappear, while the elevation is certainly later.
The original building was known for its extraordinary grandeur: the
facade was 21 meters long while the palace extended inwards for about 60
meters. It opened onto the Grand Canal with nine imposing vaults, five
of which were used as warehouses and four for storing wines. The side
facades were also characterized by vaults: the left side housed six and
the right seven. However, they have all been closed.
Each noble
floor was distinguished by an important portego illuminated by a large
fenestration, now reduced in both cases to a simple five-light window.
The second noble floor appears more important than the first: the ogives
of the mullioned window are in fact decorated with splendid
fifteenth-century capitals, two decorated with baskets and two in the
Corinthian style, with four vertical panels, a patera and an important
upper stringcourse frame in clear and excellent Venetian-Byzantine
style, carved with floral motifs, which occupies the entire width of the
facade.