Palazzo Seriman is a palace in Venice located in the Cannaregio district, with two elevations: one on the Salizada Seriman and the other on the Rio del Gozzi.
This is the palace of which Sansovino speaks when, after naming the
Zeno palace to the Jesuits, he adds that on this side of the bridge is
that of the Contarinis, formerly built by the Dolce house. A document
from 1466 mentions this building, built perhaps a few years earlier by
Pietro Como on commission from the Dolce family and then passed on to
Contarina Contarini, consort of Piero Priuli Michiel. On 31 May 1638 it
was purchased and raised to the family residence by Alberto Gozzi, known
as "dalla seda", because he owned a silk fabric shop in Calle dei
Toscani in Rialto. The Gozzis, who belonged to a noble family from
Bergamo, came to Venice in the 16th century and were admitted to the
patriciate in 1546 with Alberto Gozzi. They died out in 1698 with
another Alberto whose widow, Adriana Donà, having retired to the
Capuchin convent of Castello and renouncing the use and fruit of all the
properties, also put this building up for sale which was bought by the
Seriman, or Sceriman, family in 1725 The Serimans, of Armenian origin
from the city of Isphahan in what was then Persia, landed in Venice at
the end of the seventeenth century to escape persecution by the
Ottomans. They supported the Republic of Venice with large sums, an
amount of 72,000 ducats in support of the war against the Turks and for
this they entered the Venetian nobility for money.
The building
that was the seat of the Accademia degli Industriosi for several years,
which then moved to Palazzo Morosini del Giardino, is now owned by the
Handmaids of the Child Jesus.
It is a building with considerable dimensions which prefigures the transition from late Gothic to the Renaissance. Examples of this are the geometric partition of the openings, the capitals of the quadrifora on the piano nobile by now in an almost Renaissance style, the mezzanine windows are already from the sixteenth century as is the land portal on the Salizada, but coexist with the trefoil pointed arches or with the splendid twist of the corner column on the rio. Probably, the palace originally had a "C" type plan with a courtyard and an open staircase where there is now a serliana, partially walled up, in the facade on the rio. At the back of the building there is a beautiful garden in the area where once was a Venier palace, demolished in the 19th century, once decorated with statues by Bernardo Falconi in its courtyard. Inside there is an interesting Baroque staircase designed by Antonio Gaspari who, towards the end of the seventeenth century, also remodeled the façade overlooking the garden. The ceiling of the staircase is frescoed with an "Apotheosis of the Sceriman family", painted by the painter from Tiepolo Mattia Bortoloni in 1727. Also inside there are two paintings by Sebastiano Ricci: Eleazzaro and Rebecca at the well and Moses defending the daughters of Jetro from the 17th century century.