The Browning Palace on the Grand Canal

Category

Library Item

Item no

24977

Title

Palazzo Rezzonico ora Browning sul Canale Grande [The Rezzonico (now the Browning) Palace on the Grand Canal]

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1893

Size

35.0 x 23.5 cm

Type

Photogravure

Location

Art and Design Library

Ferdinando Ongania [1842 - 1911] was an Italian antiquarian bookseller, with a shop in St. Mark's Square in Venice. From 1861 until his death in 1911 he devoted himself almost entirely to the printing of illustrated art books. His love of Venice inspired him to record the architecture of his beloved city.

Ca' Rezzonico, in the Dorsoduro district, is one of the grandest palaces on the Grand Canal, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and houses the Museo del Settecento Veneziano, the Museum of Eighteenth-Century Venice.

Ca' Rezzonico was the last home of the poet Robert Browning. In 1888 his son Pen Barrett Browning bought the palazzo, and Browning spent his last months living in a mezzanine apartment off the courtyard. The poet died there on 12 December 1889. There is a stone plaque on the wall of the building which remembers the poet 'Roberto Browning' and quotes his lines:
Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, 'Italy'.

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Balconies

Architecture > Architectural features > Doors and doorways

Architecture > Architectural features > Shutters

Architecture > Architectural features > Windows

Architecture > Monuments > Sculptures

Landscape > Water > Canals

Places > Europe > Italy

Transport > Water > Gondolas

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