Venice, its history and its palaces

My Photo Tour in Venice is of course about photography, but I am also very interested in the history, the architecture and the culture of this city.

During our Photo Tour if you like we can discover it too.

The Pala di San Giobbe

The altarpiece in its original place

This is how Giovanni Bellini's Altarpiece of San Giobbe should look in its original place, inside the church of San Giobbe in Venice. Recently reopened, in this church you can still see the altar above which the Altarpiece stood before it was transferred into the Accademia Galleries.

Ancient map of Venice

Ancient map of Venice

At the origin of Venice's history

As early as 811, the construction of the palatium (palace) at Rialto attests to the importance of Civitas Rivoalti, by then the center of intense building activity, which would later become the civitas Venetiarum (city of the Venices).

The Guardian Grando of the Scuola Dalmata

The Guardian Grando of the Scuola Dalmata

The hidden treasures of the Scuola degli Schiavoni.

Venice is full of people interested in art, who go around in churches, museums, palaces, Scuole Grandi and so on. Many of them are art professors, or erudite tour guides, or travelers who take advantage of free time to get rich in culture. My approach to Venice instead, as a photographer who holds Photo Tours in Venice, is completely different...

Palazzo Rezzonico, on the Grand Canal

Palazzo Rezzonico, on the Grand Canal

One of the most interesting examples of Baroque architecture in Venice

The palace is one of the most prominent examples of Baroque architecture in Venice and was subject to a complex sequence of building activities which protracted its construction over about a century, before its final completion…..

The house of Marco Polo

Marco Polo in a mosaic

Marco Polo in a mosaic

Marco Polo’s house was in the quarter of san Giovanni Crisostomo, in which Marco Polo lived for the last 25 years of his life, until January 1324, and it was purchased by…

Venetian Palaces on the Grand Canal

Venetian Palaces on the Grand Canal

The object of unreserved admiration

What has remained until the present day still bears ample witness to the magnificence and the glorious past of the city of Venice. And however in the past the Venetians have been given to thrift, they were always splendidly liberal in the embellishment of their homes.

Carnival inside the Caffé Florian

Carnival inside the Caffé Florian

What does it mean to be the official photographer such a famous place in Venice: the Caffé Florian?

Since 1720 Venetians say: “Andemo da Florian!” (let’s go to Florian’s!). In fact, since almost 300 years Caffé Florian is the meeting point for Venice’s lovers, and this place preserved its identity, in spite of the epoch-making changes, economic and social upheavals of the Venetian society, depopulation. It's first name was...

Pluteus in the Basilica of Saint Eufemia in Grado

Pluteus in the Basilica of Saint Eufemia in Grado

A common heritage between the Italian Hinterland and the Venetian Region

If we are to understand the beginnings of the art of Venice, or rather of Venetic art, we must pay a visit to Grado where around the “Patriarchs’ square” we will see works of architecture, sculpture and mosaic…..

Palazzo Loredan Vendramin Calergi

Palazzo Loredan Vendramin Calergi

The palace represents the most significant architectural epoch of Renaissance Venice.

“Among the most important of all the palaces on the Grand Canal”; it is described as having “great body and great height… very noble with regards not only to the layout of the rooms inside but also to the façade covered with Greek marble…”

Inside the Church of the Greeks in Venice

Inside the Church of the Greeks in Venice

It's almost impossible to believe that we are just a few hundred meters away from the chaos of San Marco square! 

I was pretty sure I knew well enough the religious festivals and traditions that take place in Venice since more than one thousand years, because every day, during a Photo tour, I walk all around this marvellous City, entering everywhere. 

Frescoes and stucco in the ballroom of Ca’ Zenobio

Frescoes and stucco in the ballroom of Ca’ Zenobio

During one of my Photo Tours in the district of Dorsoduro, far from the famous tourist routes, sometimes we can find the door of Ca’ Zenobio open. The palace faces onto the quiet Rio dei Carmini on a site that is not spectacular, like the Grand Canal, but rather is characterized by serene intimacy, unchanged by time.