Fondaco dei Turchi: Spices, Coffee and the Ottoman Merchants
Why is it significant?
Stand beside a long white palace whose canal front is a double row of round arches on slender columns, with a squat tower at each end topped by little battlements.
Key Facts
| Place | Fondaco dei Turchi: Spices, Coffee and the Ottoman Merchants |
|---|---|
| Address | Salizada del Fontego dei Turchi, Santa Croce 1730, 30135 Venezia VE, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 45.44180, 12.32840 |
| Part of Walk | Fish, Wine and Cicchetti: Venice's Rialto Markets and the Bacari of San Polo |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand beside a long white palace whose canal front is a double row of round arches on slender columns, with a squat tower at each end topped by little battlements. The best view is from a passing boat, but even from the side it looks like something out of a Byzantine mosaic come to life... and in a way it is.
This is the Fondaco dei Turchi, one of the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal, built in the thirteenth century for a wealthy family. It passed through many hands, and in 1621 the Republic turned it into the headquarters of the Ottoman merchants: warehouses, lodgings and a place of prayer under one roof, with windows partly walled up so the merchants could live by their own customs. They stayed until 1838.
Think about what moved through these doors: pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, silk, carpets and wax. For centuries Venice was the spice market of Europe, and spices are still hiding in its cooking. The sweet and sour of saor, with its raisins and pine nuts, the cinnamon in old festival sweets, the habit of adding sugar to savoury dishes: all of it tastes of the eastern trade.
Coffee came the same way. Venetians learned it from the Ottomans, and in 1683 the first coffee house in the city opened under the arcades of Saint Mark's Square. Within a century there were dozens of them, and Venetians were arguing, gossiping and plotting over little cups exactly as the merchants of Istanbul did.
In the nineteenth century the half-ruined palace was rebuilt so thoroughly that critics accused the restorers of inventing a new building. Since 1923 it has been Venice's Natural History Museum, home to the skeleton of an Ouranosaurus, a dinosaur found in the Sahara. Now walk inland, to the south, to a wide and leafy campo where the neighbourhood gathers in the evening.