Fondaco Dei Turchi

Lonely Planet review

This 12th-century mansion belonged to the dukes of Ferrara until it was handed over in 1621 for use as a warehouse and way station for Turkish merchants (who operated in Venice through all the ups and downs of relations between Muslim Turkey and the West). The building now houses the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale (Natural History Museum).

The Fondaco dei Turchi was rented out to the Turks until 1858. The place was restored in appalling taste in the mid-19th century, leaving few reminders of its medieval origins. It was like plastic surgery gone wrong. Original features in the façade were sacrificed to the architectural fancies of the time - the odd crenellations are, for example, an unhappy addition.

On the 2nd floor of the partially reopened museum is an imaginative display dedicated to a series of archaeological expeditions in the Sahara desert of Niger in the 1970s. The two most outstanding finds are an Ouransaurus and remains of a 12m-long prehistoric crocodile skeleton. Look out also for the 120-million-year-old psittacosaurus mongoliensis , a 0.5m-long skeleton of a baby dinosaur found in the Gobi Desert.

Downstairs you'll find a rather melancholy little aquarium and a butterfly collection.