Architectural, Cultural sights in Italy
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Palazzo Ducale
Don’t be fooled by its Gothic elegance: this building was all business, from medieval carved stone capitals depicting key Venetian guilds along the arcade, to Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon’s 15th-century PortadellaCarta (Paper Door), the bulletin board for government decrees facing the piazza. The building was damaged by fire in 1577, but Antonio da Ponte (who designed the Ponte di Rialto) restored it.
Entering through the colonnaded courtyard, you’ll spot Sansovino’s statues of Mars and Neptune flanking the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase), which Antonio Rizzo built as a suitably grand entrance for Venice’s dignitaries and which is currently undergoing restora…
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Casa di Goethe
Close to the Piazza del Popolo is the modest, lovingly maintained Casa di Goethe, where the German writer had a whale of a time between 1786 and 1788. Its collection includes his drawings and etchings from the period as well as interesting souvenirs of his stay.
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Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi
High Renaissance meets high risk at this 16th-century palace, which for centuries has served as the city’s casino. This might seem like an odd place to convalesce, but composer Richard Wagner was no stranger to drama, and chose to retreat here in 1882–83 to recover from an apparent bout of heart trouble and complete the 20-year effort on this Ring cycle. He succeeded, only to die of a heart attack here within a few months. You can wander into the ground-floor area during casino hours, but unless you’re staying in a high-end hotel that offers free passes, you’ll have to don formal attire and pay to see the gaming rooms. Three of the salons Wagner occupied have been set a…
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Palazzo Querini Stampalia
Design-savvy drinkers take their spritz ( prosecco cocktail) with a twist of high modernism in the Carlo Scarpa–designed courtyard garden or Mario Botta–designed cafe of 16th-century Palazzo Querini Stampalia. The outer shell of this building dates from the first half of the 16th century, but the inside could not be more surprising: a 1963 bridge, 1940s entrance and garden, and 1959 1st-floor library all designed by Scarpa, with noteworthy 1990s Botta embellishments. Enter through the Botta-designed bookstore to get a free pass to the cafe and its garden, or buy a ticket to head upstairs to the 2nd-floor Museo della Fondazione Querini Stampalia. In a series of sumptuo…
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Palazzo Grassi
Paris is still burning with indignation over French luxury goods magnate François Pinault’s decision to host world-class art exhibitions and works from his own standout collection of contemporary art collection not in a Paris suburb, but in a baroque Grand Canal palace. But just have a look around at the 2005 gallery renovation, and even the most patriotic Parisian could hardly blame the guy. Giorgio Massari’s 1749 neoclassical palace has become a glorious anachronism in the hands of minimalist architect Tadao Ando, whose movable panels, backlit scrims, and strategic pools of light allow viewers to focus on illuminating art and ideas without eclipsing frescoed ceilings an…
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Ca’ Rezzonico (Museo del Settecento Veneziano)
Other museums may illuminate, but this one sparkles. This period-piece Longhena palace showcases 18th-century arts in lavish music salons, sumptuous boudoirs, even a pharmacy with medicinal scorpions. Several salons are crowned with ceiling masterpieces by Giambattista Tiepolo, in rare form with sensuous beauty and shameless flattery. The Throne Room shows gorgeous Merit ascending to the Temple of Glory clutching the Golden Book of Venetian nobles’ names – including Tiepolo’s patrons, the Rezzonico family. Other collection highlights include the Pietro Longhi Salon satirising of society antics observed by disapproving lapdogs; the Sala Rosalba Carriera, with her unv…
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Villa Farnesina
A must for fans of Renaissance art, this gorgeous 16th-century villa features some awe-inspiring frescoes by Sebastiano del Piombo, Raphael and the villa’s original architect, Baldassare Peruzzi. Peruzzi was commissioned to build the villa by the powerful banker Agostino Chigi but in 1577 bankruptcy forced the Chigis to sell it to the Farnese family, after whom it is named. The most famous frescoes are in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche on the ground floor. Although they are generally attributed to Raphael, the great man did little more than design the frescoes for his assistants to paint. Apparently he was so besotted with his mistress, who worked in a nearby bakery, that…
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Palazzo Mocenigo
Costume dramas unfold in swanky 18th-century salons of this Grand Canal palace with displays of original baroque costumes. Necklines plunge in the Red Living Room, lethal corsets come undone in the Contessa’s Bedroom, and deep red procurators’ robes hide deep pockets and expanding waistlines in the Dining Room. It’s easy to imagine romance blossoming under the ceiling fresco to nuptial bliss in the Green Drawing Room, and doge elections being negotiated in the Count’s Library – seven Mocenigo family members served as dogi. The five big portraits are of Mocenigo allies and sometime party guests, such as Charles II of England. But even at the most extravagant partie…
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Museo Revoltella
Baron Pasquale Revoltella (1795–1869) would be pleased. He not only left his three-storey neo-Renaissance mansion to Trieste, but also his private collection of then-contemporary art. With this and a hefty financial bequest from Revoltella, the Museo Revoltella was born in 1872. The city expanded the collection into two neighbouring buildings. Revoltella’s house retains the atmosphere and furnishings of the baron’s time. The baron’s flamboyant taste fills the gaudy rooms, with their chandeliers, gilded plaster, silk wallpaper and gold curtains. His collection of 19th-century Italian paintings and marble sculptures of nudes is on show here. The modern section, Palazzo …
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Casa di Goldoni
Comedians, musicians and writers will feel inspiration bubbling up like a belly laugh from the stone floors at the birthplace of Carlo Goldoni (1707–93), Venice’s greatest playwright and a maestro of delicious social satire and opera buffa (comic opera). As the 1st-floor display explains (in Italian), Goldoni was a master of second and third acts: he was a doctor’s apprentice before switching to law, a backup career that proved handy when some comedies didn’t sell. But Goldoni had the last laugh, with salon sitcoms that made socialites laugh at themselves. The main draws in the museum are the 18th-century marionettes and puppet theatre, but don’t miss the chambe…
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Albergo dei Poveri
Not impartial to a spot of PR, Bourbon king Charles VII built this giant poorhouse at a main city entrance to promote himself as enlightened and compassionate. In the process of a slow restoration, it currently houses 85 families, by now the descendants of needy families housed there after WWII. According to locals, they share the place with a number of luminous ghosts.
Charles's gesture was grand indeed - the Albergo dei Poveri (Hostel of the Poor) is Europe's largest public building. If all had gone according to architect Ferdinando Fuga's plans, though, it would have been bigger. His original designs called for a facade 600m long, with five internal courtyards. When co…
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Piazza San Pietro
One of the world’s great public spaces, Bernini’s piazza was laid out between 1656 and 1667 for Pope Alexander VII. Seen from above, it resembles a giant keyhole with two semicircular colonnades, each consisting of four rows of Doric columns, encircling a giant ellipse that straightens out to funnel believers into the basilica. The effect was deliberate – Bernini described the colonnades as representing ‘the motherly arms of the church’. The 25m obelisk in the centre was brought to Rome by Caligula from Heliopolis in Egypt and later used by Nero as a turning post for the chariot races in his circus. The scale of the piazza is dazzling: at its largest it measures 340m …
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Palazzo del Quirinale
Flanking Piazza del Quirinale, this immense palazzo served as the papal summer residence for almost three centuries until the keys were begrudgingly handed over to Italy’s new king in 1870. Since 1948, it has been home of the Presidente della Repubblica, Italy’s head of state. Pope Gregory XIII (r 1572–85) originally chose the site for his holiday home and over the course of the next 150 years the top architects of the day worked on it: Domenico Fontana designed the main façade, Carlo Maderno built the chapel, and Bernini was responsible for the manica lunga (long sleeve), the austere wing that runs the length of Via del Quirinale. On the other side of the piazza, …
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Palazzo Nonfinito
Bernardo Buontalenti started work on this residence for the Strozzi family in 1593. He and others completed the Palladian-style 1st floor and courtyard but the upper floors were never completely finished, hence the building's name. Buontalenti's window designs and other details constitute a mannerist touch that takes the building beyond the classicist rigour of the Renaissance. The obscure Museo dell'Antropologia e Etnologia is housed here.
It contains all sorts of oddments, ranging from ancient crania to arms, boats and other objects from various indigenous peoples around the world. The fusty displays are sorted roughly by regions (Africa, America, Asia, India and Oceani…
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Palazzo Labia
Now the Venice office of the RAI, Italy's national radio and TV organisation, this was once a grand 17th-century family residence. It boasts several frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo, but you must phone to arrange a visit (when open).
The Labia family had arrived from Spain and planned to make a hit among the local aristocracy. The frescoes are said to represent Tiepolo's greatest secular commission.
The grand ballroom, a two-storey-high space characterised by a gamut of architectural trompe l'oeil trickery, is the framework for two giant frescoes depicting the meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra and Cleopatra's banquet. In the latter fresco, Tiepolo included a portrait of him…
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Palazzo Cenci
A veritable house of horrors, Palazzo Cenci was the scene of one of the 16th century’s most infamous murders. The victim was the sadistic Francesco Cenci, who was killed by his daughter Beatrice and wife Lucrecia after submitting them to years of abuse. After a long, drawn-out investigation the two perpetrators were beheaded in 1599 on Ponte Sant’Angelo in front of a vast and largely sympathetic crowd. Shelley based his tragedy The Cenci on the family, and a famous portrait of Beatrice by Guido Reni hangs in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica – Palazzo Barberini. It shows a sweet-faced young girl with soft eyes and fair hair.
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Villa Rosebery
In an area famed for its blue-ribbon real estate, Villa Rosebery is a star resident. Built in the 18th century, its history is both romantic and epic. It was used by Luigi of Bourbon in the early 19th century for his trysts with the dancer Amina Boschetti, and it was from here that King Vittorio Emanuele III left Italy in 1946 after the abolition of the monarchy.
The complex consists of three buildings - the Palazzina Borbonica, the Piccolo Foresteria and the Cabina a Mare - surrounded by lush, extensive waterside gardens.
During the Maggio dei Monumenti, the estate is sometimes open to the public, who flock here in droves to see what their taxes can buy.
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Casa di Puccini
Just north of the Piazza Cittadella is Casa di Puccini, the modest house where one of the 20th century's greatest composers was born in 1858. He lived there until studies at Milan's music conservatory beckoned him aged 22.
Inside, everyday objects tell the tale of the composer's life. Specs and pen lay poised on the desk next to the Steinway piano on which Puccini, the last in a line of celebrated Lucca musicians, wrote much of Turandot (1926) while staying at his seaside villa in Viareggio in 1921. The opera, unfinished when he died, was the last before throat cancer got the better of him after last-ditch surgery in Brussels failed in 1924.
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Villa Medici
This striking Renaissance palace has been home to the French Academy since the early 19th century. It was built for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano in 1540, but Ferdinando dei Medici bought it in 1576 and it remained in Medici hands until Napoleon acquired it in 1801 and gave it to the French Academy. Its most famous resident was Galileo, who was imprisoned here between 1630 and 1633 during his trial for heresy. These days, the only way to get inside is to visit one of the regular art exhibitions or take a guided tour of the finely landscaped gardens (adult/concession €8/6; guided tours in Italian & French Wed, Sat & Sun).
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Palazzo Fortuny
The not-so-humble home studio of outrageous art nouveau Spanish-Venetian designer Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo features three floors swagged with Fortuny’s printed textiles, mood-lit with his signature patterned glass lanterns. Today these sumptuous halls host rotating exhibits by modern artisans, inevitably upstaged by Fortuny’s preserved top-floor studio and 1910 sketches of bohemian goddess frocks that could rule red carpets today. If these salons inspire decor schemes of your own, check out Fortuny Tessuti Artistici in Giudecca, where wall coverings are still hand-printed according to Fortuny’s top-secret methods.
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Palazzo Venezia
Built between 1455 and 1464, Palazzo Venezia was the first of Rome’s great Renaissance palaces. For centuries it served as the embassy of the Venetian Republic, although its best known resident was Mussolini, who used the vast Sala del Mappamondo as his office and famously made speeches from the balcony overlooking the square. Nowadays, the palazzo houses the Museo del Palazzo Venezia, with its superb Byzantine and early Renaissance paintings and an eclectic collection of jewellery, tapestries, ceramics, bronze figurines, arms and armour.
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Chiesa di Sant'Anna
Opposite the Complesso del Calvario complex is the Chiesa di Sant'Anna, connected to the Capuchin friary in Palazzo Sannicandro. Padre Pio, canonised after his death in 1968, lived here for six months before moving to San Giovanni Rotondo. Apparently he relocated for health reasons, and because his nocturnal battles with demons kept the other brothers awake.
You can visit his bedroom - a spartan affair comprising a narrow cot, a writing desk, and cloths and gloves stained with blood from his stigmata wounds. There's even a vial of his pleural fluids on show.
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Villa dei Quintili
Set on lush green fields between Via Appia Antica and Via Appia Nuova, this vast 2nd-century villa was the luxury abode of two brothers who were consuls under Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Alas, the splendour of the villa was to be the brothers’ downfall – in a fit of jealousy, Emperor Commodus had them both killed, taking over the villa for himself. The highlight is the well-preserved baths complex with a pool, caldarium (hot room) and frigidarium (cold room). There’s also a small display of archaeological bits and bobs found in the vicinity.
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Stadio di Domiziano
Like many of the city’s great landmarks, Piazza Navona sits on the site of an ancient monument, in this case the 1st-century-AD Stadio di Domiziano. This 30,000-seat stadium, remains of which can be seen from Piazza Tor Sanguigna, used to host games – the name Navona is a corruption of the Greek word agon, meaning public games. Inevitably, though, it fell into disrepair and it wasn’t until the 15th century that the crumbling arena was paved over and Rome’s central market transferred here from Campidoglio.
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Palazzo Mirto
Just off Piazza Marina is one of the only palazzi open to the public, Palazzo Mirto . Considering Palermitan extravagances, the palazzo is actually pretty modest. Its walls are covered in acres of silk and velvet wallpaper, and vast embroidered wall hangings, while its floors are paved in coloured marbles and mosaics.
The real extravagance, however, is the tiny Salottino Cinese (Chinese Salon) full of black lacquer, silken wallpaper and a rather conceited ceiling painting of European aristos viewing the room from above.
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