The Palazzo or Ca' Cappello Layard is a palace situated in the sestiere of San Polo of Venice, Italy, overlooking the Grand Canal at the confluence between this and the smaller Rio di San Polo and Rio delle Erbe. On the Grand canal, it is located between Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza and Palazzo Grimani Marcello. It is particularly noteworthy for having been the residence of Austen Henry Layard, discoverer of Nineveh.
Located on the confluence of three canals, it is thus an unusual structure in that it presents three facades rather than the customary one. [1]
Ca' Cappello is a grand palace of Gothic origin, but substantially restructured during the course of the sixteenth century under the direction of its owner, the procurator of Saint Mark Antonio Cappello, who had supervised some of the most important projects of construction and renovation in sixteenth-century Venice, in particular the commencement of work on Rialto bridge, the edification of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and the supervision of the construction of the Golden staircase at Ducal Palace or the redecoration of the room of the Council of Ten within the palace.
For these important works Antonio had frequently commissioned painters Paolo Veronese and Giovanni Battista Zelotti, to who he had ties through common friend Michele Sanmicheli. Veronese and Zelotti were thus commissioned to decorate with frescoes the renovated Renaissance palace. [2] The fresco cycle was noted by Giorgio Vasari as one of Veronese’s notable works “who painted with the same [Zelotti] the façade of the palace of M. Antonio Cappello that is in Venice overlooking the Grand Canal”. The frescoes were more extensively described by erudite Carlo Ridolfi in his 1648 Le Meraviglie dell’arte, “over the Grand Canal in the house of the Cappelli Veronese coloured some figures of Cerere, Pomona, Pallas and other deities. The figures above were painted by his friend Zelotti”. [3] The cycle did not survive long. In his 1674 Miniere della Pittura Veneziana the erudite Marco Boschini noted surviving but damaged work by Zelotti, and wrote that much had already been lost in a fire. [4] The deities painted by Zelotti were however still visible in 1760 when Anton Maria Zanetti printed his Varie Pitture a Fresco de principali maestri Veneziani, and reproduced in engravings the four surviving figures. [5] It is not certain when these remaining and worn out frescoes were finally lost, but by the nineteenth century they were certainly no longer visible.
Ca Cappello was purchased, at a date given variously as 1874 and 1878 by sources, by the English archeologist, diplomat and politician Austen Henry Layard, with the help of the doyen of the British community in Venice, the historian Rawdon Brown. [6] Layard, who had shipped his great collection of Italian Renaissance paintings to Venice in 1875, inhabited the palazzo stably following his withdrawal from the diplomatic career after political debacle in Istanbul and deep disagreement with Gladstone until his death by cancer, on the occasion of a rare visit to London, in 1894. [7] The frescoes by Zelotti and Veronese were no longer visible, but Layard managed significant renovation works in the palace. Red, yellow and green felt covered the walls inside, and Spanish silks festooned outside of balconies and windows gave the palazzo an unmistakable appearance. Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh and a Hellenistic funerary piece from Samos were installed into the staircase wall, though these were in 1892 donated to the Museo Civico Correr, and replaced with floral paintings by Neapolitan artist Francesco Lavagna.
More significant was the collection of paintings assembled by the Layards in a gallery in the palazzo, with the most significant work being the Portrait of Mehmet II by Gentile Bellini. Because of Layard’s particular standing, the palazzo quickly became a meeting place for “the greatest representatives of British and international cultural, political and diplomatic intelligentsia between the final quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the XXth”. [8] The Layards quickly rose amongst a thriving expat community in Venice, their patronage ensuring the edification of St. George’s Anglican church in Venice, where glass windows commemorate the founder. [9] The death of Austen Henry Layard did not interrupt social activity, and his widow, Lady Enid, maintained an equally intense social activity in the palazzo. The intense social activity around the salon of Austen Henry Layard and his wife Enid is recorded in Lady Layard’s diary. Frequent visitors included art historians John Ruskin and Giovanni Morelli, the Victorian poet Robert Browning, of whose poetic abilities Lady Layard had a low opinion, and the historian Horatio Brown, as well as local nobles such as countess Annina Morosini, supposedly the most beautiful woman in Venice at the time, but whom Lady Layard found “vulgar”. Royalty acknowledged the Layards, and Lady Enid in particular enjoyed a special relationship with queen Alexandra and the German empress consort Victoria. Writing about Lady Layard in 1898 her friend Lady Gregory remembered that “the emperor [the Kaiser, son of empress Victoria] passed this house [Ca Cappello] recognized Lady Layard on the balcony and touched his hat two or three times”. In 1911 the Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Lord Kitchener even held private meetings in Ca Cappello.
The death of Lady Layard in 1912 and the outbreak of the war saw an end to Ca Cappello’s role as a leading literary and social salon in Venice. It was later acquired by the Carnelutti family, before passing in 1967 into the possession of the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari.
It is currently the object of a controversial swap operation that would see it transferred, together with sixteenth-century palace Ca Bembo and the modern Palazzo Cosulich, two other university properties, to a property investment fund in exchange for a 1957 former state electricity company edifice. The swap has aroused considerable criticism and investigative weekly L'Espresso has noted the absence of a public auction and problems connected with an apparent violation - only supposed - with Italian heritage law, that forbids the swap of listed property. [10] The chancellor Carlo Carraro has defended the operation on budget grounds, arguing it will help stave off large cuts to scholarships and research funding. [11]
The Doge's Palace is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the former Republic. It was built in 1340 and extended and modified in the following centuries. It became a museum in 1923 and is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
Sir Austen Henry Layard was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in Italy. He is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace reliefs known, and in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal. Most of his finds are now in the British Museum. He made a large amount of money from his best-selling accounts of his excavations.
The Grand Canal is a channel in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.
The Ca' d'Oro or Palazzo Santa Sofia is a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, northern Italy. One of the older palaces in the city, its name means "golden house" due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls. Since 1927, it has been used as a museum, as the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti.
Ca' Foscari, the palace of the Foscari family, is a Gothic building on the waterfront of the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy.
Giovanni Battista Zelotti was an Italian painter of the late Renaissance, active in Venice and her mainland territories.
Palazzo Malipiero is a palace in Venice, Italy. It is on the Grand Canal in the central San Samuele square. It stands just across from the Palazzo Grassi Exhibition Center.
The Palazzo Giustinian is a palace in Venice, northern Italy, situated in the Dorsoduro district and overlooking the Grand Canal next to Ca' Foscari. It is among the best examples of the late Venetian Gothic and was the final residence of Princess Louise of Artois.
Palazzo Balbi is a palace on the Canal Grande, Venice, northern Italy. It is included in the sestiere (quarter) of Dorsoduro, to the right of Ca' Foscari. Currently it is the seat of the President of the Veneto region and of the regional council.
Ca' Tron is a palace in Venice, northern Italy, facing the Canal Grande. Part of the sestiere (quarter) of Santa Croce, it is situated between the Palazzo Belloni Battagia and Palazzo Duodo, near the church of San Stae. It is owned by the Università Iuav di Venezia and houses the Department of Design and Planning in Complex Environments.
Ca Bembo is a grade-listed sixteenth-century palazzo in the parish of San Trovaso in the sestiere of Dorsoduro in Venice, Italy, noteworthy for a particularly large garden. It has, despite its name, no clear connection with the Bembo family, but a particularly strong association with one of the most prominent branches of the aristocratic Venetian family of the Barbarigo.
Antonio Cappello (1494-1565) was a Venetian noble, a member of the San Polo branch of the Cappello family [it:Cappello (famiglia)]. A Procurator of St Mark's, he acted as ambassador to the court of Charles V at Gand, but is mainly remembered for his role as one of the main promoters of public art and architectural projects in sixteenth-century Venice. He resided in the palazzo on San Polo now known as Ca Cappello Layard and oversaw its redevelopment.
The Palazzo Gussoni Grimani Della Vida, also called Grimani a San Fosca is a Renaissance-style palace on the Grand Canal, located between the Palazetto Barbarigo and the Rio di Noale, in the sestiere of Cannaregio, in Venice, Italy.
The Palazzo Barbarigo dalla Terrazza is a Renaissance-style palace on the Grand Canal, across the Rio San Polo from the Palazzo Cappello Layard and adjacent to the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in the sestiere of San Polo, in Venice, Italy. In 2015, it housed the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani.
The Palazzo Marcello dei Leoni is a palace between the Rio di San Tomà e Palazzo Dolfin, on the Grand Canal in the sestiere di San Polo in Venice, Italy.
Palazzo Correr Contarini Zorzi is a Renaissance palace in Venice, Italy, overlooking the Grand Canal and locating in the Cannaregio district between Palazzo Querini Papozze and Palazzo Gritti. The palazzo is also known as Ca' dei Cuori, a family whose wrought iron coats of arms is present on the façade.
Palazzo Mocenigo Gambara is a palace in Venice, located in the Dorsoduro district and overlooking the Grand Canal, between the Contarini Palazzi degli Scrigni and Corfù and Palazzo Querini alla Carità, not far from the Gallerie dell'Accademia and in front of Palazzo Giustinian Lolin.
Palazzo Calbo Crotta is a palace in Venice, located in the Cannaregio district and overlooking the Grand Canal, near the Scalzi bridge.
Palazzo Gradenigo is a palace in Venice, located in the Santa Croce district, near Palazzo Soranzo Cappello and the church of San Simeone Profeta, and overlooking Rio Marin.
