Venice Italy- Palazzo Barbaro
Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:00 pm
I was reading the book The City of Fallen Angels about Venice and the burning down of La Fenice, their opera house. The best part of the book for an architecture lover like myself, was the description of Palazzo Barbaro, a private home, which actually consists of two buildings and was once the hub of Venice's social, literary and art life.
If anyone has an interest in Venice, read this book. It's nonfiction and a fast read.
Getting back to the Palazzo, I wanted to know what it looked like inside. I read that it featured paintings by Tiepolo and that the writer Henry James had a desk residing there where he would stay for extended periods of time while working on a novel. It all seemed very romantic to me, the amount of history about the place.
So I've managed to find one B&W photo of the inside ballroom.
Also some tidbits about the palace....
(pasted)
The ceilings are approximately 20 feet high featuring chandeliers that hanging 8 feet above the floor.
The upper curtian windows hide musician's galleries that could be used for dances or chamber music. The ballroom is towards the front of the building and the unseen wall (off frame-right) leads to balconies over the Grand Canal. The ceiling decorations by Giambattista Tiepolo are now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the large wall paintings include canvases by Sebastiano Ricci.
The painting An Interior in Venice is by Sargent circa 1898 and is set in the ballroom of Barbaro.
Imagine the photo in color and how sumptuous those furnishings are. The ceiling carvings and gold leaf and murals and paintings and...and...
I'm going to self destruct.
I would love to live in a place that offered up beauty like this. And Venice is on my list of "must do's."
Has anyone been there and/or seen any of these palazzos or the Doge's Palace or any of these incredible buildings??
Attached files
If anyone has an interest in Venice, read this book. It's nonfiction and a fast read.
Getting back to the Palazzo, I wanted to know what it looked like inside. I read that it featured paintings by Tiepolo and that the writer Henry James had a desk residing there where he would stay for extended periods of time while working on a novel. It all seemed very romantic to me, the amount of history about the place.
So I've managed to find one B&W photo of the inside ballroom.
Also some tidbits about the palace....
(pasted)
The ceilings are approximately 20 feet high featuring chandeliers that hanging 8 feet above the floor.
The upper curtian windows hide musician's galleries that could be used for dances or chamber music. The ballroom is towards the front of the building and the unseen wall (off frame-right) leads to balconies over the Grand Canal. The ceiling decorations by Giambattista Tiepolo are now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the large wall paintings include canvases by Sebastiano Ricci.
The painting An Interior in Venice is by Sargent circa 1898 and is set in the ballroom of Barbaro.
Imagine the photo in color and how sumptuous those furnishings are. The ceiling carvings and gold leaf and murals and paintings and...and...
I'm going to self destruct.
I would love to live in a place that offered up beauty like this. And Venice is on my list of "must do's."
Has anyone been there and/or seen any of these palazzos or the Doge's Palace or any of these incredible buildings??
Attached files