Ca' Rezzonico – Museum of 18th-century Venice

The palace which houses the Museum of 18th-century Venice was built at the behest of the Bon family, one of the old noble families of the town. In 1750 Giambattista Rezzonico bought the building and commissioned Giorgio Massari, the fashionable architect of the time, to complete the building. The ground plan of the building was innovative for its time. The continuous closed portico which traditionally crossed old Venetian palaces longitudinally, from the water entrance to the land entrance, was here broken up by an inner courtyard. This was typical of the scheme for land palaces and was not used in Venice. The solution is simple but effective. 

During the 19th century the palace changed owners several times and was gradually stripped of all its furnishings. It had been reduced to a mere empty receptacle when it was purchased by the city of Venice in 1935 to house the 18th-century art collections. In just a short time, furnishings were added to the paintings: everyday objects, also stripped frescoes or ceiling canvases from other city palaces. The result is an extraordinary environmental museum in whose rooms we can see works of one of the most fortunate periods of European art, together with the lavishness and splendour of an 18th-century Venetian mansion.