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 parties in these drawing rooms, guests were well advised to mind their tongues: philosopher and Mocenigo house guest Giordano Bruno was turned over to the Inquisition for heresy by his hosts.