Palazzo dei Dieci Savi is an architecture of Venice, located in the San Polo district and overlooking the Grand Canal, near the Rialto bridge.
Built in the first half of the 16th century, Palazzo dei Dieci Savi
is a project by Antonio Abbondi. It became the seat of the Dieci Savi
alle Decime, the judiciary responsible for the finances of the
Serenissima. It had this function for the entire duration of the
Republic.
Restored in 1925 by the architect. Agostino Jaccuzzi
and in a good state of conservation, the building was the seat of the
Water Magistrate, a public body suppressed in 2014 following the MOSE
scandal.
The building has a long facade on the Ruga degli Oresi and a short
one on the Grand Canal.
The long facade is opened on the ground
floor by a portico of thirty-seven round arches, the ceiling of which,
with cross vaults, is covered by frescoes, large portions of which are
fairly well preserved.
The two upper floors, divided by long and
thick string course frames, are designed in the name of rationality, in
line with the very function that the building had: it is opened by two
rows of thirty-seven rectangular single-lancet windows in unadorned
stone frames. On the top, a thin serrated cornice runs through the
attic.
The layout of the facade on the canal is similar: it is
opened by four arches on the ground floor and by five pairs of
rectangular single-lancet windows on the upper floors.
There are
only two decorative elements: a sixteenth-century statue representing
Justice, located on the second floor, in the corner between the two
facades; a bas-relief with a Lion of San Marco, inserted in a circular
frame and dating back to 1848, the era of the short-lived Republic of
San Marco, in opposition to the Austrian rule which had recently taken
it away.