Description
Ca' Pesaro is a large Baroque palace on the Grand Canal, in the Santa Croce district. It houses the International Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Oriental Art: it is the place in the city to see art from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The façade on the canal is an exercise in sculpture: above a diamond-point rustication and the double water portal, the two piani nobili with seven arches fill up with bearded heads, river figures, monsters, shells and putti.
The palace was commissioned by the very wealthy Pesaro family, and the design is attributed to Baldassarre Longhena, although direct documents are lacking. Work lasted from 1652 to 1710. In 1676, for a wedding, the guests entered from the courtyard: the canal side was still a building site.
Longhena died in 1682 and the site stood still for a long time. It was Antonio Gaspari who completed it in 1710, with small changes to the façade and a new staircase, moved to the side.
In the nineteenth century the palace passed to the Gradenigo, then to the Mechitarist Armenian fathers, and in 1851 to Guglielmo Bevilacqua. On his death his sister inherited it, the duchess Felicita Bevilacqua La Masa.
In her will the duchess left the palace as a residence and gallery for young artists. Since 1902 the museum and the artists' studios have lived side by side here. The core of the works comes from the donation of Prince Alberto Giovanelli, in the first years of the Biennale.
In the gallery look for the masterpieces by Klimt and Chagall, and works by Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse and Moore. The third floor houses the Museum of Oriental Art, in a palace whose frescoed rooms frame everything else.
The palace is considered one of the most important in Venice for its size and decorative quality, and on the side of the Rio delle Due Torri it shows a curved, simpler façade, designed at a later stage: dynamic, in contrast with the stillness of the main façade.
The façade on the canal is an exercise in sculpture: above a diamond-point rustication and the double water portal, the two piani nobili with seven arches fill up with bearded heads, river figures, monsters, shells and putti.
The palace was commissioned by the very wealthy Pesaro family, and the design is attributed to Baldassarre Longhena, although direct documents are lacking. Work lasted from 1652 to 1710. In 1676, for a wedding, the guests entered from the courtyard: the canal side was still a building site.
Longhena died in 1682 and the site stood still for a long time. It was Antonio Gaspari who completed it in 1710, with small changes to the façade and a new staircase, moved to the side.
In the nineteenth century the palace passed to the Gradenigo, then to the Mechitarist Armenian fathers, and in 1851 to Guglielmo Bevilacqua. On his death his sister inherited it, the duchess Felicita Bevilacqua La Masa.
In her will the duchess left the palace as a residence and gallery for young artists. Since 1902 the museum and the artists' studios have lived side by side here. The core of the works comes from the donation of Prince Alberto Giovanelli, in the first years of the Biennale.
In the gallery look for the masterpieces by Klimt and Chagall, and works by Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse and Moore. The third floor houses the Museum of Oriental Art, in a palace whose frescoed rooms frame everything else.
The palace is considered one of the most important in Venice for its size and decorative quality, and on the side of the Rio delle Due Torri it shows a curved, simpler façade, designed at a later stage: dynamic, in contrast with the stillness of the main façade.