Palazzo Molin (also known as Palazzo Molin del Cuoridoro) is a Venetian palace located in the San Marco district, a notable example of Gothic architecture dating back to the 15th century. It was built at the crossroads between the Rio dei Barcaroli and the Rio dei Fuseri, between Piazza San Marco and the La Fenice theatre, not far from Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. Access is from a small, now privatized calle called dei Cuoridoro, a side street of the Frezzeria.
The palace was founded in 1468 by Marco and Girolamo Molin, sons of Paolo Molin. The noble Molin family gave the Republic a doge, Francesco Molin (1646-1655), as well as important men of letters and talented soldiers, among whom we remember Filippo Molin who, during the thirty-year war of Candia against the Turks, extracted a poisoned arrow that had wounded him, he dipped it in his own blood to write his will, to be read in the Senate. The building has recently undergone a renovation and has been divided into eighteen apartments.
Access to the building takes place through a portal with a showy coat
of arms of the Molin family (note the mill wheel, symbol of the family,
and just above the three small busts placed in the eighteenth century),
which leads into a large closed courtyard, on which overlooks the rear
elevation of the building.
Main facade
Of great historical and
artistic value is the western façade, which overlooks Rio dei Barcaroli
and is visible, albeit from a small foreshortening, from the Ponte dei
Barcaroli or Ponte dei Cuoridoro. It is made up of two truly remarkable
buildings, important examples of the flowery Gothic style that was so
successful in Venice. The main body, very impressive, is made up of a
ground floor, a mezzanine, two main floors and an attic mezzanine. The
secondary body, without solution of continuity, is composed of a ground
floor, a mezzanine and a main floor.
Of particular note are the
two banks of water and the two four-light windows of the main body,
located on the first and second noble floor. The windows, with
mouldings, columns, capitals and balustrades in Istrian stone, are
enclosed in indented frames also in Istrian stone. On the top floor
there is instead a trifora, of smaller dimensions.
All the
openings are pointed arches, trilobate, with a Gothic fiorone at the
cusp of the arch, a rectangular notched frame and, apart from the
mezzanine attic, all with projecting balconies. Also beautiful are the
string course frames, the twisted corner on the two sides of the second
building, the showy cornices and the three Istrian stone bas-reliefs,
datable to the last quarter of the 15th century and placed however in a
later period between the pairs of single lancet windows of the first
floor. Sixteenth-century renovations can be read in the stone finishes
of the mezzanines and balconies.
Secondary facades
The
north-facing façade looking onto the Rio dei Fuseri offers nothing of
relevance, in the design of which traces of the original Gothic
forometry are visible. Most of the holes are rectangular single-lancet
windows with a simple design.
The eastern façade, which overlooks
a vast private courtyard, with a particularly simple layout, takes up
the stylistic features of Gothic art in a less eclectic way, proposing
two stacked four-light windows and numerous single-lancet windows,
varied in shape and size. It has recently been refurbished.
Planimetric system
The typical tripartite layout of Venetian noble
residences is visible, with a portego passante on the ground floor and
two tripartite noble floors, with a passing hall and rooms that open
symmetrically on both sides. To this structure is added a secondary
body, added at a later time, which overlooks the courtyard.