Palazzo Contarini Pisani is a palace 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 ...

, located in the

Cannaregio Cannaregio () is the northernmost of the six historic ''sestieri 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, is associate ...

district, overlooking the left side of the Grand Canal, between Palazzo Boldù and Casa Levi Morenos, in front of Ca' Corner della Regina.

History

Dating back to the 16th century and rebuilt from Veneto-Byzantine structure, the palace belonged to the

Contarini The Contarini is one of the founding families of Venicehttps://archive.org/details/teatroaraldicose02tett, Leone Tettoni. ''Teatro araldico ovvero raccolta generale delle armi ed insegne gentilizie delle piu illustri e nobili casate che esis ...

family, who wanted to combine it with an adjacent building, but this plan was never realized. This is partly why the palazzo looks prosaic and outwardly unremarkable.

Architecture

The four-story building has a semicircular arched portal with access to the water, framed by two rectangular and two square window openings, and rustication in the corners. The first floor is separated from the upper ones by a massive cornice, which turns the floor into a kind of

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

. The

trifora Trifora is a type of three-light window. The trifora usually appears in towers and belfries—on the top floors, where it is necessary to lighten the structure with wider openings. Overview The trifora has three openings divided by two small colu ...

s in the middle of the facade emphasize the central axis of the whole composition. All openings are framed with

Istrian stone Istrian stone, ''pietra d'Istria'', the characteristic group of building stones in the architecture of Venice, Istria and Dalmatia, is a dense type of impermeable limestone that was quarried in Istria, nowadays Croatia; between Portorož and P ...

; corner stones on both sides of the facade are also made of this material up to the middle of the second floor. On the right side, the first floor ends with a lonely, strange in proportion, but typically Venetian column with a fancy capital.

Gallery

CANAL GRANDE - palazzo contarini pisani.jpg, A view from Grand Canal Venezia-Murano-Burano, Venezia, Italy - panoramio (439).jpg, Facade details Palazzo Contarini Pisani, gennaio 2007 (Venezia).jpg, The right corner of the palazzo Palazzo Boldù a San Felice e Contarini Pisani Canal Grande Venezia 2.jpg,

Palazzo Boldù a San Felice The Palazzo Boldù a San Felice is a palace located on the Canal Grande of Venice, between the Palazzetto Da Lezze and Palazzo Contarini Pisani in the Sestiere of Cannaregio, Venice, Italy. History The palace was erected in the 16th century by th ...

and Palazzo Contarini Pisani Grand Canal - Palais Ghisi Contarini depuis le Quai dell'Olio.JPG, A view from the opposite side of Grand Canal

References

{{Reflist Palaces in Sestiere Cannaregio Palaces on the Grand Canal (Venice) Buildings and structures completed in the 16th century Medieval Italian architecture Renaissance architecture in Venice House of Contarini