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 Palazzo Bolani Erizzo is an ancient Venetian palace of the 13th century, built along the Grand Canal in the Cannaregio district. It stands wall to wall with Palazzo Dolfin. History The palazzo was the ancient residence of the poet Pietro Aretino ...

, in the sestiere of Cannaregio in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Today, it is home to the Venice Venice Hotel.

Architecture

left, Ca' Da Mosto - facade on ''Campiello del Leon Bianco'' The palace has high narrow arches and distinctive

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

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; some studies, however, suggest that the structure is even older. Originally owned by the

Barozzi family The House of Barozzi was an aristocratic Republic of Venice, Venetian family that belong to the Venetian nobility. Members of the family became sailors, clerics and men of learning. They were lords of Santorini and Thirassia, and held military ...

, the property was purchased by Marco da Mosto of the da Mosto family in 1266, from which the palace takes its name. The most famous da Mosto was

Alvise Cadamosto Alvise Cadamosto (surname cf. ''Ca' da Mosto, da Cadamosto, da Ca' da Mosto''; also known in Portuguese as ''Luís Cadamosto''; mononymously ''Cadamosto'') (; ) (c. 1432 – 16 July 1483) was a Venetian explorer and slave trader, who was hired by ...

, 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 an individual's sibling or sibling-in-law. A niece is female and a nephew is male, and they would call their parents' siblings aunt or uncle ...

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'' ("White Lion Hotel"). In 1769 and 1775 the

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans (disambiguation), Emperor of the Romans (; ) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period (; ), was the ruler and h ...

and son of

Maria Theresa Maria Theresa (Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position suo jure, in her own right. She was the ...

Joseph II Joseph II (13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from 18 August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 29 November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor F ...

, lived here during his stay in Venice.

Present day

The Ca' da Mosto sat empty for decades prior to 2019, 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. The Ca' da Mosto has since undergone a €3 million restoration, followed by an €8.7 million investment intended to transform the palace into the luxury Venice Venice Hotel. Beginning in January 2019, renovation works were originally scheduled for completion in 2020, but the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

delayed the hotel's opening until February 2022.

Sources

*Francesco da Mosto, ''Francesco's Venice'' (London: BBC, 2004)

External links

Official site of hotel

References