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Great Discoveries "Personal Tour Guides" will provide you with the most enjoyable and informative way to visit Ca' Rezzonico. Our carefully researched tour identifies and locates the most relevant treasures to ensure that you do not miss important works and that you clearly understand each items artistic and historic significance. As you view these carefully selected treasures, our professional narrators, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, will delight, amuse and inform you, making your visit a most memorable experience. Learn about this magnificent 17th century palace, located on Venice's Grand Canal, that houses a wonderful collection of 18th century Venetian art, with informative descriptions, photo's, building diagrams, and sample audio tracks.
This huge sumptuous palace, which took its name and luster from the Rezzonico family, was actually built by the aristocratic scholar and Procurator Fillipo Bon, the patriarch of the noble Bon family. In the mid 17th century the Bon's owned two houses which occupied the land on which the palace now stands. Documents of the time describe them as being “gloomy without sunshine” and “very old” and in need of “extensive repairs.” Fillipo purchased some additional property along the Rio di San Barnaba and in 1667 he commissioned the most famous baroque architect of his time, Baldassare Longhena, to design and construct his palazzo.
Beginning with the facade on the Grand Canal, he began a two-decade project that was destined to revive the tradition of grand 16th century patrician residences, and establish the model of contemporary baroque in post-Renaissance Venetian civil architecture.
Unfortunately, only the ground floor and first floor of the building had been completed, when the famous architect died in 1682. As fate would have it, Longhena’s death closely coincided with the death of his client and subsequently the financial collapse of the Bon family resulted in the almost complete suspension of the construction. Work proceeded slowly under the supervision of Antonio Gaspari until it was purchased in 1750, over sixty years later, by the much more affluent Rezzonico family.
Massari’s goal was to provide a suitable setting for the interior as well as the exterior. He seems to have followed closely the original ideas and plans of Longhena, with the addition of some concepts of his own which reflected the change in ideals and architecture between the palazzo’s conception and its completion 100 years later. The design of the palazzo was to be of a marble facade facing the canal. The facade was to be three stories tall with the ground floor containing a central recessed portico. The palazzo today follows this form; by blending the upper facade almost seamlessly with the lower Longhena section, Massari managed to form one of the most unforgettable presences on the Grand Canal.
To have a palace on the Grand Canal was in itself prestigious, and to have a splendid and unusually large one constructed by Giorgio Massari and decorated by the likes of Giambattista Tiepolo, was certainly an added bonus. The completion of the palazzo symbolized the completion of the Rezzonico’s upward social journey. The pinnacle of the Rezzonico’s power and the palazzo’s grandeur came in 1758 when Giambattista Rezzonico’s son, Carlo, then Bishop of Padua, was elected Pope with the name of Clement XIII.
The palazzo changed owners several times during the mid 19th century, resulting in some of its precious furnishings being lost. In the 1880’s the palace became the property of the English painter Robert Barrett Browning, whose father Robert Browning, the poet and man of letters, died here while visiting in 1889.
In June of 1935 Ca’ Rezzonico was acquired by the City Council of Venice to display its vast collections of 18th century Venetian art. Thus today the palazzo is furnished with contents more magnificent than at any time in its history. Further works of art by Tiepolo have been added, including an entire frescoed ceiling, rescued from the Barbarigo Palazzo, now located in the palaces Throne Room.
On April 25, 1936, in the presence of the Duke of Genoa, this 18th Century Venetian museum was officially opened to the public. Today it is one of the finest museums in Venice, largely because of its unique character, where objects designed for great palazzo’s are displayed in a palace, thus the contents and the building harmonize in a way not possible in a purposely built museum.
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Ca’
Rezzonico is a majestic but imposing 17th century marble palace
It
was Giambattista Rezzonico, the head of an originally Lombard family
who, in 1751, was to assume the costs and prestige of the building.
The Rezzonico family had recently been granted patrician status,
status obtained by making enormous payments to the Republic. Having
recently purchased their noble status, they wanted to be assured,
and to assure everyone else, that they had arrived. The
architect he engaged to complete the work was 
Ca’
Rezzonico was the center of very elaborate parties and celebrations,
but in just fifty years, after the splendors of Carlo Rezzonico’s
papal election, this powerful family disappeared with the death
of Abbondio in Pisa in 1810.
for your first sample before playing the second sample, or you
will not hear it.
