Palazzo Grassi
The last palace raised on the Grand Canal before the Venetian Republic fell — and the largest-sited of them all.
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Giorgio Massari finished it in 1772 in a deliberate academic classical style, visually at odds with the Byzantine and Baroque palaces flanking it. Fiat bought it in 1983 and architect Gae Aulenti converted it into an exhibition hall for visual art. Eighteenth-century frescoed stairwells and painted ceilings now share space with contemporary work.
What to look for
- The white marble façade — note the missing lower mercantile openings that most older Venetian palaces carry
- The main stairwell frescoed by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Francesco Zanchi
- Ceiling decorations by Giambattista Canal and Christian Griepenkerl
Sits on the Grand Canal between Palazzo Moro Lin and campo San Samuele; operates as a rotating contemporary art gallery, so check what is showing before you arrive.
Palazzo Grassi 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.