Description of the attraction
Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti is a palace on the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice, located near the Accademia Bridge and Palazzo Barbaro. Since 1999, it houses the Institute of Sciences, Literature and Art of the Veneto Region and regularly hosts cultural events.
The palace was built in 1565. In the 19th century, at the initiative of a number of noble owners, it was completely rebuilt in the Venetian Gothic style, with particular emphasis on the rich decoration of the windows.
The first renovations of the Palazzo Cavalli-Gussoni, as it was then called, were carried out after 1840, when the young Austrian Archduke Frederic Ferdinand became its owner. He intended to implement a number of projects aimed at strengthening the presence of the Habsburg dynasty on the Grand Canal, since in those years the territory of Venice belonged to Austria-Hungary. After the sudden death of the Archduke in 1847, the Palazzo was bought by Count Henri de Chambord, who entrusted further restoration work to the architect Giambattista Meduna. A portrait of this architect, with the splendid Cathedral of Santa Maria della Salute in the background, can be seen in the Palazzo Ducale in Modena.
In 1878, Baron Raimondo Franchetti, who married Sarah Louise de Rothschild, daughter of Anselm Rothschild of those same Viennese Rothschilds, acquired the Palazzo Cavalli-Gussoni and gave it his name. He continued the reconstruction of the palace, hiring the architect Camillo Boito for this, who built a large staircase. And in 1922, Franchetti's widow sold the palace to one of the state-owned companies in the Veneto region.
