Palazzo Contarini Dal Zaffo is a palace in Venice, located in the Cannaregio district, near the Madonna dell'Orto and near the Sacca della Misericordia, which overlooks the Casino degli Spiriti.
Building of the sixteenth century, it was wanted by the Contarini Dal
Zaffo family, it is the homonym of the Contarini dal Zaffo palace built
by the family on the Grand Canal in the previous century.
Today
it is the Venetian headquarters of the Piccola casa della Divina
Provvidenza, also known as Cottolengo from the name of the founder,
Saint Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, and of the house of cardinals Opera
fides intrepida.
The name is due to a member of the family,
Giorgio Contarini. Zaffo is the Venetian dialect deformation of Jaffa.
The palace is a typical Renaissance building, whose facade on the
foundations of Gasparo Contarini is developed in length and devoid of
symmetries. There are three levels, but the ground floor acquires the
dimensions of a mezzanine, crossed by square single-lancet windows;
there are two portals, round arched and large, centrally occupying the
first two levels: they have a mask in the key and between them a single
lancet window surmounted by the stone coat of arms of the family. The
first noble floor is a long row of thirteen rectangular single-lancet
windows in a stone frame; the second also has thirteen rectangular
single-lancet windows, but inscribed in a rounded frame: the peculiarity
lies in the presence, moved to the left of the portal, of a
sixteenth-century serliana with a balustrade.
On the back of the
building there is an enormous garden which looks towards the north side
of the city, where the lagoon area opens up.
Inside, as in the palace
on the Grand Canal, frescoes by Giandomenico Tiepolo are preserved,
which are now found in the chapel, but at the time of the Contarinis
they were the decorations of the rooms on the mezzanine.