Ca' Foscari

Why is it significant?

Make your way into the courtyard of Ca' Foscari and look back towards the water: tall Gothic windows with pointed arches, stone tracery like lace, carved friezes and the coats of arms of a family that wanted the whole Grand Canal to see it.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Make your way into the courtyard of Ca' Foscari and look back towards the water: tall Gothic windows with pointed arches, stone tracery like lace, carved friezes and the coats of arms of a family that wanted the whole Grand Canal to see it. The palace sits exactly at the bend, the volta de canal, where the view runs both ways, towards Rialto and towards San Marco.

It was built from 1453 for the doge Francesco Foscari, who ruled Venice for thirty-four years, longer than any doge before him. He turned the Republic into a land power on the mainland, and he made this palace a statement: no other house has quite this view. The bend is also the finish of the Historical Regatta every September, and the floating judges' stand, the machina, is moored right in front.

But the Foscari story is a tragedy. His son Jacopo was accused of taking bribes, then of murder, tried, and sent into exile, and he died far away on Crete. The old doge, broken, was forced by the Council of Ten to abdicate in 1457, and he died only days later. Lord Byron turned the story into a play, The Two Foscari, and Giuseppe Verdi into an opera, I due Foscari, in 1844.

In 1574 the young King Henri III of France stayed here on his way home from Poland, and the Republic entertained him so lavishly that, the story goes, at one banquet even the napkins were made of sugar. Since 1868 the palace has housed the university that carries its name, and today students argue about economics under the same ceilings where a king was entertained.

Now head back into the calli, away from the Grand Canal, and walk south to Campo San Barnaba. From the campo follow the canal a few steps west, to a small bridge with white marble footprints set into its top.