Byzantine and Roman heritage
Torcello is home to the oldest building in the lagoon: the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, founded in 639, whose dome, marble pavements and mosaics are all characteristic of the art of Byzantium, under whose authority Venice was founded. Venice, however, was quick to create its own style, known as Venetian-Byzantine. The finest example of this style is St. Mark's Basilica, with its sumptuous mosaics, five domes and marble and porphyry decorations. Opposite the basilica, Piazza San Marco developed into the forum of Venice. It is the city's only piazza . On the other hand, Venice has many campi, public squares with their own churches, bordered by a canal and rich palaces, where the main streets of the district converge. Campi are to be distinguished from campielli and corti (small squares and courtyards), where you'll find another key element of Venice: the well, an ingenious cistern for collecting rainwater, whose curbstones are worked like sculptures. Criss-crossed by calli (streets) and rii (canals) - overhung by wooden bridges with single round arches to allow boats to cross - Venice's urban planning is unique. While the Venetian-Byzantine style dominated until the 13th century, Romanesque architecture made a few incursions. The cloister of Sant'Appolonia is the only surviving example, although Romanesque touches can be seen in the Lombard bands - pilasters linked by a semicircular arcature - on the campanile of Santa Maria Assunta, for example. During this period, the city also acquired its first palaces, the casa fondaci, which served as warehouses, shops and residences. These palaces had a land-side entrance leading to the inner courtyard and the main staircase of the house, as well as a water-side entrance giving access to the warehouses via a portico. The mezzanine is occupied by offices and shops, while the upper floor, or piano nobile, is made up of different rooms organized around the portego, a central room running along the entire facade and sometimes preceded by superb, elaborate loggias. Adorned with marble, friezes and medallions, the waterfront facade abandons its defensive finery, reflecting the political and social security of Venice at the time. The Fondaco dei Turchi is one of the finest examples.
Gothic effervescence
Gothic architecture took off in the 17th century, spurred on by the mendicant orders. The Franciscans built Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, whose astonishing elevation can be admired thanks to an ingenious system of plaster vaults on wooden frames. The Dominicans built Santi Giovanni e Paolo, nicknamed the Pantheon of Venice for its monumental austerity. At the same time, the city's private palaces grew ever more sumptuous, often adding a second piano nobile and displaying superb ornamentation. The most famous palace of the period is the Ca'd'Oro (Ca is short for Casa!), with its gold and marble facade featuring openwork arcades, trellised balconies and loggias featuring the great Gothic motifs: rosettes, three-lobed arches, quatrefoils (a stone frame dividing a window and forming an ornamental network) and geometric shapes. Venetian Gothic has the finesse of lace and the brilliance of gold and marble borrowed from Byzantine art. Venice delighted in this hybridization of styles, which can be seen in the masterpiece of the period: the Doge's Palace. But Venice was already aware of the challenges it faced. Work began to clean out the canals and combat silting. Pedestrian traffic also became a major issue. Bridges and fondamenta (quays) multiplied, while the banks of the Grand Canal underwent major development.
Triumph of the Renaissance
The Venetian Renaissance marked the cultural apogee of the Serenissima. This period can be divided into two main phases: the First Renaissance (14th-15th centuries) and the Classical Renaissance (16th century). The two great architects of the early Renaissance were Pietro Lombardo and Mauro Codussi. Codussi advocated an architecture of rigor and sobriety, as seen in the immaculate whiteness of the Istrian stone facades of the churches of San Michele in Isola and Santa Maria Formosa, the latter being a symbol of balance and harmony with its Greek cross plan inscribed in a square. Lombardo tended towards more ornamental ostentation, as evidenced by his masterpiece Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Its facade, inlaid with rare marble, and its vaulted ceilings with gilded caissons are borrowings from St. Mark's Basilica. After the fire of 1483, the Doge's Palace was rebuilt by Antonio Rizzo and Pietro Lombardo, both of whom favored a return to antiquity. St. Mark's Square was also transformed, with Codussi adding a clock tower of admirable polychrome gold and blue. At the same time, the Scuole - religious or professional guilds and charitable brotherhoods - engaged in stimulating competition, resulting in the construction of sumptuous houses, such as the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. Here, Codussi created a superb staircase known as a tribunale , evoking the tribune on which the Byzantine emperor sat to attend ceremonies. The staircase was also used in private palaces, as in Codussi's Palazzo Corner Spinalli.
The two great figures of the classical Renaissance were Jacopo Sansovino and Andrea Palladio. Sansovino introduced a new architectural language based on that of ancient Rome. His most famous work is the Libreria Vecchia, whose arcades are reminiscent of those of the Colosseum. For his churches, he nuanced his antique vocabulary with Byzantine influences, as evidenced by the Greek cross plan of San Martino and the rich ornamentation of San Zulian. Palladio, who succeeded Sansovino as proto (chief architect of Venice), combined humanist ideas with antique models. In Venice itself, he mainly designed religious buildings. He was responsible for the façade of the church of San Francesco della Vigna, whose two pediments give the astonishing impression of two interlocking facades. At San Giorgio Maggiore, he gave free rein to monumentality, with imposing pedestal-mounted columns and large thermal bays reminiscent of Roman imperial baths. But his masterpiece remains Il Redentore. This classical Renaissance was also marked by the reconstruction of the Rialto area. Sansovino designed the Fabbriche Nuove, blending functionalism and antique monumentality, while Antonio Da Ponte built the famous Rialto Bridge with its unique 7.50 m high arch. Public works continue in Piazza San Marco with Vincento Scamozzi's Procuratie Nuove, which he aligns with the Libreria Vecchia, creating a spectacular harmony.
From baroque to neoclassicism
The great Baroque architect was Baldassare Longhena, who designed the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, whose monumentality and ornamental richness were inspired by the Palladian model. Venetian Baroque celebrated both the city's rich past and the power of its patrons, who built sumptuous palaces. In fact, Longhena was responsible for two of the finest palaces of the period: the Ca'Pesaro and the Ca'Rezzonico, largely inspired by Sansovino's palaces, to which were added monumental staircases, an essential element of the Baroque theatrical effect. These staging effects are brought to a climax in the Gesuiti church, whose walls are covered with draperies... actually carved from marble. An astonishing optical effect accentuated by the multiplication of twisted columns and volutes.
The 18th century, meanwhile, rejected Baroque exuberance and advocated a return to the rigor of antiquity, in an assertive worship of the work of Palladio. Among the finest examples of this Venetian neoclassicism are the church of San Simeon Piccolo, placed on a podium like the temples of antiquity; the Palazzo Priuli Manfrin, with its almost total absence of decoration; and the Palazzo Grassi , whose cortile (arcaded courtyard) creates a monumental space. Neoclassicism or neo-Palladianism reached its apogee in the works of Tommaso Temanza and Giannantonio Selva. To the former we owe the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, with its perfect central plan; to the latter, we owe the La Fenice Theatre, whose façade is preceded by an astonishing Corinthian portico. While the exteriors express rigor and sobriety, the interiors rival each other in luxury, multiplying rich decorations and ceremonial rooms. This use of neoclassicism continued during the Napoleonic occupation. Selva designed the very sober San Maurizio church. But despite his desire to maintain the city's architectural continuity while imagining a new urbanism (the Giardini and the perspective of Via Garibaldi are interesting examples), the French occupation was accompanied by widespread destruction... The Napoleonic paradox!
Eclecticism and modernity
The Austrian occupation offered Venice an interesting duality. On the one hand, it brought real urban vitality, in particular with the multiplication of bridges to facilitate crossing the Grand Canal, which until then had only been crossed by the Rialto Bridge. In 1854, English engineer Alfred Neville achieved a technical feat with his single-arch metal bridge near the Academia. The bridge was demolished in the 1930s and replaced by a wooden one! But the most striking bridge of the period was, of course, the railway bridge, which definitively put an end to Venice's insularity. At the same time, the Austrians were keen to preserve their heritage, transforming numerous convents and palaces into public services. Alongside the neoclassical style, a series of pastiches or revivals developed, linked to the growing interest in historical research. The new façade of the Fondaco dei Turchi, for example, paved the way for the neo-Byzantine style. These revivals reached their peak when Venice was reintegrated into the Kingdom of Italy. Neo-Gothic was very much in vogue at the time. It can be found in palaces(Palazzo Franchetti), but also in the industrial architecture on the banks of the Giudecca Canal, such as the cotton-spinning factory that today houses the Venice Institute of Architecture, and above all the great Mulino Stucky flour mill, all brickwork and crenellations.
At the end of the 19th century, the Giardini de Selva hosted the International Exhibition of Fine Arts, with its grand neoclassical pavilion. The exhibition soon expanded to include new national pavilions, reflecting architectural research at the turn of the century. At the same time, the "Venetian Group" of wealthy industrialists encouraged the development of the Lido, which became a showcase for Venetian eclecticism. The Hôtel des Bains, a blend of neo-Gothic and Hispano-Moorish styles, is the most famous example. Along the grand avenues of the Lido, villas are adorned with the shapes and colors of Art Nouveau (known as Liberty in Italy). Villa Monplaisir, with its chiselled polychrome decorations, is the most famous. The revival style also continues to be employed in pseudo-medieval and neo-Renaissance palaces.
Contemporary period
In the 1930s, Fascism imposed its brutal monumentality on Venice, as evidenced by the Piazzale Roma, designed to accommodate the automobile traffic multiplied by the creation of the road bridge. Twenty years later, Venice built a new railway station, a long, horizontal, closed block whose white Istrian stone is the only reminder that this is Venice. This complex cohabitation with existing buildings raises the question: does contemporary architecture have a place in Venice? The Gardens of the Biennale answer in the affirmative, transforming themselves into an architectural experimentation ground where the greatest names have imposed their mark on the various national pavilions: Alvar Alto for Finland, Gerrit Rietveld for Holland and Josef Hoffmann for Austria. These gardens also bear the mark of Carlo Scarpa, who created the cortile for the sculptures in the large pavilion, with its undulating roof. In Venice, Scarpa works mainly on existing buildings, taking care to maintain the link between past and present, through the use of materials dear to Venice (marble, Istrian stone...). Among his finest achievements are the Querini Stampalia Foundation and the Olivetti store.
In the 1980s, the Institute of Architecture collaborated with the city on rehabilitation projects and innovative popular housing projects blending modernity and Venetian tradition. In the 2000s, Venice welcomed the starchitects. Santiago Calatrava designed the Constitution Bridge, Tadao Ando restored the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogama for the Fondation Pinault, Mario Botta created new spaces for the Fondation Quérini Stampalia, Renzo Piano redesigned the old salt stores for the Fondation Vedova, while Rem Koolhaas and Philippe Starck helped transform the Fondaco dei Tedeschi into a temple of luxury and design. Little by little, Venice continues to reinvent itself!
Venetian escapades
Beyond the lagoon, the Veneto region offers a journey through architectural history. In Verona, you'll discover one of the richest collections of Roman remains in northern Italy. Ancient pragmatism and monumentality can be seen in the impressive Arena. You can also admire the purity of Romanesque lines in the Santa Maria Matricolore cathedral, the imposing Gothic of the Sant'Anastasia basilica and the masterpieces of Sanmicheli, one of the great masters of the Venetian Renaissance (Palazzo Bevilacqua, Tempietto), not forgetting of course Castelvecchio, a medieval fortress transformed into a museum by Carlo Scarpa. In Vicente, you enter the realm of Palladio, who built the basilica, the superb Teatro Olimpico and, above all, the sumptuous villas that have become the flagship of his vision of architecture, a blend of humanism and ancient rigor. Domes, columns, porticos, sculptures and majestic staircases are all motifs borrowed from Antiquity, transforming these villas into new Renaissance temples. The most famous of Vicente's villas is the Villa Rotonda. And Palladian villas can be admired all over the region, especially along the Brenta, the Venetian Riviera! In Padua, don't miss the incredible Palazzo della Ragione and its Salone, an immense vault without supporting columns and the largest suspended hall in the world (81 m long, 27 m wide and 27 m high!). And don't forget to enjoy the exceptional setting of the Prato della Valle, Italy's largest square, designed in the 18th century by Andrea Memmo as an elliptical island surrounded by a canal. Astonishing! Finally, lose yourself in the narrow streets of medieval Treviso, an ancient bastion of the Serenissima, whose lions stand guard everywhere. The Veneto region has plenty to surprise you!
