Palazzo Papadopoli (or Palazzo Coccina Tiepolo Papadopoli) is a palace in Venice, located in the San Polo district and overlooking the Grand Canal between Palazzo Giustinian Businello and Palazzo Donà in Sant'Aponal, opposite Palazzo Grimani di San Luca.
The attribution of the work aroused various perplexities among scholars as the building presents references to different currents of the sixteenth century. The facade in Istrian stone with central serlianas recalls the work of Sanmicheli, the side tympanums the work of Palladio and the scrolls in the attic that of Jacopo Sansovino or Alessandro Vittoria.
Palazzo Papadopoli was built in the second half of the 16th century
to a design by Giangiacomo dei Grigi from Bergamo (son of the more
famous architect Guglielmo dei Grigi) on commission from the Coccina
family, also from Bergamo and who moved to Venice, where it became part
of the Venetian patriciate. Probably the opening date of the
construction site was the year 1560. The land on which the building was
built previously housed some houses dating back to the 14th century.
Probably the fact that he had completed the neighboring Palazzo Grimani
after the death of Michele Sanmicheli played in Giangiacomo dei Grigi's
favor. The construction site was completed around 1570.
The
palace, after having been the home of the Coccinas, who had endowed it
with a rich collection of canvases among which four by Paolo Veronese
stand out, among which the most famous is The presentation of the
Coccina family to the Virgin, known also as The Coccina family in front
of the Virgin, then sold to the Duke of Modena Francesco d'Este, passed
due to the extinction of the owning family in 1748 to the Tiepolos
(according to some sources of the San Beneto branch, according to others
to the Sant'Aponal branch). In 1745 the remaining part of the picture
gallery had also been sold to the Elector of Saxony for the sum of
100,000 sequins: it became part of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in
Dresden. In the eighteenth century it was decorated on the second noble
floor by Giandomenico Tiepolo. He made The Charlatan and The Minuet. The
more famous Giambattista Tiepolo painted the ceiling of an alcove around
1750. However, this work is not present in the Gemin-Pedrocco catalogue.
Several other owners alternated throughout the 19th century,
including Valentino Comello who bought it in 1837, whose wife Maddalena
Montalban became famous for her anti-Austrian political commitment which
led her to serve a year in prison, and Bartolomeo Stürmer, Austrian
marshal, until the building became the seat of the family of the counts
Niccolò and Angelo Papadopoli in 1864, whose family, originally from
Corfu, had been aggregated to the patriciate in 1791: between 1874 and
1875 the architect Girolamo Levi, author of a neoclassical modernization
of the sixteenth-century structure, of elaborations in rococo style of
some internal rooms, of the construction of an entire wing and of the
addition of a large garden on the Grand Canal, built on the site where
some houses once stood contiguous. The direction of the decoration was
entrusted by the designer to the antiquarian Michelangelo Guggenheim.
Cesare Rotta also collaborated in the realization, who created frescoes
in the ballroom, obtained from the ancient portego, and along the
monumental staircase.
Palazzo Papadopoli passed in 1922 to the
heirs of the Papadopoli, the noble Arrivabene-Valenti Gonzaga family.
The top floor was the seat from the seventies to 2005 of the Institute
of Marine Sciences, part of the National Research Council.
second half of the 16th century-1748 Coccina family
1748-1837
Tiepolo family
1837 - Valentino Comello
- Bartholomew Stürmer
1864-1922 family of the counts Niccolò and Angelo Papadopoli
1922-2013 Arrivabene Valenti Gonzaga family
Transformation into a
hotel
Since 2017 it has been rented to a Greek company which has
taken care of its conversion into a hotel; since 2013 it has been home
to the only AMAN resort in Italy. A 7-star hotel with 24 rooms
distributed in the historic building.
The building is arranged in an L shape and consists of three floors
(with mezzanine and mezzanine in the attic).
The symmetrical
facade has three levels well highlighted by two string courses: the more
imposing one divides the two noble floors, while a less important one
divides the second noble floor from the attic. It is one of the most
majestic and balanced facades among those facing the Grand Canal. It is
characterized by a decoration in Istrian stone, visibly inspired by the
work of Sebastiano Serlio, and by the overlapping of several serlianas.
On the ground floor there is a large round portal, in the frame of which
there are two pairs of overlapping square single-light windows.
The two noble floors, in correspondence with the portal, are embellished
with a serliana with a balustrade: that of the first floor is marked by
four semi-columns, that of the second floor by pilasters. The
balustrades are not the same as the lower one, unlike that of the second
main floor, has an overhang. Furthermore, the portal on the ground
floor, the serliana on the first noble floor and that of the second are
respectively decorated with decorations in the Doric order, the Ionic
order and the Corinthian order. In addition to the serliana, each noble
floor has four single-lancet windows surmounted by a raised tympanum.
They are triangular on the first floor and curvilinear on the second.
The apparatus that enriches this monumental facade is truly rich. On
the first noble floor there are two coats of arms in relief. Finally, we
should mention seven small oval openings in the attic (equipped with
cartouche decorations) and, on the roof, two pinnacles in the shape of
an obelisk, peculiarities of a few other Venetian facades, such as
Palazzo Belloni Battagia and Palazzo Giustinian Lolin. The garden houses
a late Gothic well curb. As for the interiors, the atrium of mirrors is
very valuable.