Palazzo Contarini delle Figure is a Venetian building located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal between Palazzo Mocenigo Ca' Vecchia and Palazzo Erizzo Nani Mocenigo, opposite Palazzo Civran Grimani.
The building adds the wording of the Figures in its name as under the main balcony there are two caryatids depicting monsters. Popular beliefs identify the two figures as a man desperate for having lost everything gambling and his furious wife: this hypothesis is not confirmed by scientific sources.
This building has been subject to attribution problems. Most scholars attribute its paternity to Antonio Abbondi. Others, highlighting the similarities that this building has with Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, attribute it to that group of artists who took their cue from the work of Mauro Codussi. The main similarities concern the polychrome cartouches and the columns with capitals in the classical order. It should be noted that Palazzo Vendramin Calergi is also a work of dubious attribution. We also thought of interventions by Andrea Palladio, who, however, would have limited himself only to completing the already sketched façade. The element that most suggests a Palladian intervention is the triangular tympanum that surmounts the central quadrifora.
The palace was built by commission of Jacopo Contarini, belonging to the famous and influential Contarini family, procurator of San Marco. In place of the current building there was another palace, built in the Gothic style, which once belonged to the Contarini family and was then sold and repurchased by them. The sale of the building took place around the year 1448, while the new acquisition, a little later, took place during the first years of the 16th century. The reconstruction site remained open from 1504 to 1546: Andrea Palladio was hosted in the house before the owner settled there with his family (1577). Jacopo Contarini chose it as the seat of his art collection. In 1713 Bertucci Contarini, the last heir of the dynasty, donated the art collection to the Palazzo Ducale collection. In the 19th century the mansion became the property of the Marquis Alessandro Guiccioli, whose wife Teresa is remembered for being the last of Lord Byron's Venetian loves. Palazzo Contarini is currently still privately owned, but has been split up and houses more apartments.
The house was built in a style that makes many references to the work of Andrea Palladio. The facade, which combines skilful decorative details, underlined by effective chromatisms, with a great formal compactness, expressed through mature expressiveness, appears to be one of the most valuable among those of the palaces overlooking the Grand Canal, while not ignoring the traditional vertical and horizontal tripartition . This effect pleased contemporary critics somewhat, who were able to appreciate the style harmoniously poised between neoclassicism and Venetian Renaissance. The ground floor has a large water portal, flanked by eight single-lancet windows arranged on two levels. The central element of the composition is the central quadrifora, punctuated by fluted Corinthian columns and underlined by the triangular tympanum, whose style is an anticipation of neoclassical architecture. This motif will in fact be taken up again in the 18th century by pre-neoclassical architects. It is hypothesized that the capitals could once be covered with gold. It is resumed on the upper floor in simpler forms and without a tympanum and appears surrounded by a series of single lancet windows with round arches.