The Ca' da Mosto is a 13th-century, Venetian-Byzantine style palace, the oldest on the
Grand Canal, located between the Rio dei
Santi Apostoli and the
Palazzo Bollani Erizzo, in the
sestiere of Cannaregio
Cannaregio () is the northernmost of the six historic ''sestieri'' (districts) of Venice. It is the second largest ''sestiere'' by land area and the largest by population, with 13,169 people .
Isola di San Michele, the historic cemetery island, ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Italy.
Architecture
left, Ca' Da Mosto - facade on ''Campiello del Leon Bianco''
The palace has high narrow arches and distinctive
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
s. The features show its beginnings as a ''casa-fondaco'', the home and workplace of its original merchant owner. A second floor was added at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a third in the nineteenth. The central part of the first floor is decorated with a wide
heptafora with leftmost opening currently closed up.
History
The palace dates from the early 13th-century, and takes its name from the Venetian da Mosto family, the most famous of whom was
Alvise Cadamosto, an Italian explorer who worked with slave traders in Portugal, and who was born in the palace in 1432. It stayed in the da Mosto family until 1603, when Chiara da Mosto left her entire estate to
Leonardo Donà dalle Rose of the Donà family, a
nephew
In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of an ...
of her second husband, rather than to her da Mosto relatives, with whom she had fallen out.
Between the 16th and the 18th centuries the Ca' da Mosto housed the well-known ''Albergo Leon Bianco'' (the White Lion Hotel). In 1769 and 1775 the
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
and son of
Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...
,
Joseph II, lived here during his stay in Venice.
Present day
The Ca' da Mosto currently sits empty, with the high waters of the canal having breached its basement. According to an interview in ''
The Lady'', the palace is admired by
Francesco da Mosto, a descendant of its eponymous former owners, and is the Venetian building he would most like to see restored. As of January 2019, the Ca' da Mosto has undergone a €3 million restoration, followed by an €8.7 million investment intended to transform the palace into a luxury hotel.
Renovation work is expected to be finished by 2020.
See also
*
Palazzo Falier, also one of the oldest Venetian buildings.
Sources
*Francesco da Mosto, ''Francesco's Venice'' (London: BBC, 2004)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ca' Da Mosto
Da Mosto
Da Mosto
Buildings and structures completed in the 13th century
Medieval Italian architecture
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