Ca' Rezzonico
A palace that bankrupted one noble family and sold unfinished for 60,000 gold ducats — now Venice's clearest window into its 18th-century self.
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Baldassarre Longhena — the architect behind Santa Maria della Salute — began this Grand Canal palazzo in 1649 and never saw it finished. A century of debt and delay later, it became the Museo del Settecento Veneziano: baroque and rococo interiors hung with paintings by Francesco Guardi and Giambattista Tiepolo, the two painters who defined how Venice pictured itself in its final gilded age.
What to look for
- Paintings by Giambattista Tiepolo, named as one of the leading Venetian painters of the period in the collection
- Paintings by Francesco Guardi, the other 18th-century Venetian master represented here
- Longhena's Grand Canal facade — construction reached only the Noble floor before his death in 1682 and the patron's money ran out
Located in the Dorsoduro sestiere on the right bank of the Grand Canal at the Rio di San Barnaba; one of 11 venues managed collectively by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
Ca' Rezzonico is one of 38 sights worth the detour in Venice, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Venice pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Venice
- St Mark's BasilicaThe Doge's private chapel turned war-trophy hall — every marble slab and bronze horse was taken from somewhere else.
- Doge's PalaceGovernment offices, a jail, and the Doge's private rooms — all under one Venetian Gothic roof on the lagoon edge.
- Grand CanalVenice's main street is water — a 3.8 km reverse-S where noble families spent fortunes trying to outshine each other in stone and marble.
- Piazza San MarcoNapoleon called it "the drawing room of Europe" — then stripped it of its four horses and shipped them to Paris.
- Rialto BridgePredicted to collapse before it opened, this single-span stone arch has carried Venice's Grand Canal traffic since 1591.
- Bridge of SighsLord Byron named it in the 19th century — condemned men crossing in 1600 took their last look at Venice through stone-barred windows before the cells closed behind them.