Palazzo Labia description and photos - Italy: Venice (Topic)

Palazzo Labia description and photos - Italy: Venice. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Palazzo Labia.

Photo and description

Palazzo Labia is a baroque palace in Venice, built in the 17-18th centuries. This is one of the city's last grand palaces on the water - little known outside Italy, it is notable for its dance hall, painted with frescoes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In addition, Palazzo Labia is also distinguished by the fact that it has not only a facade facing the Grand Canal, but also a rear facade overlooking the Cannaregio Canal (the latter, by the way, is the main one). In Venice, such architecture is very rare.

The Labia family, which owned the Palazzo, came from Spain and only in 1646 bought itself the title in Venice, which earned the local aristocrats the nickname "upstarts". They began construction of their palace at the very end of the 17th century, hiring for this two little-known architects - Tremignon and Cominelli. The location chosen was the confluence of the Grand Canal with the Cannaregio Canal in the San Jeremia area. Like many other palaces in Venice, Palazzo Labia has the shape of a rectangle built around a courtyard, while its facades are distinguished by simplicity and even some rigor, unlike most classical buildings of that time. The facade overlooking Campo San Jeremia square is not inferior in its decoration to that overlooking the Cannaregio Canal. The third, facing the Grand Canal, is smaller. The palace itself has five floors. The first and second floors are very low and decorated with protruding stones. The next two floors have high segmented windows separated by pilasters and framed by balustraded balconies. The fifth floor is a low mezzanine with a hipped roof with small oval windows, separated from each other by the heraldic eagles of the Labia family. The facade overlooking Campo San Jeremia is in the Venetian Gothic style and contrasts significantly with the other two classic facades.

Inside, the main dance hall - Salone delle Feste - is completely painted with frescoes depicting the romantic meetings of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. These frescoes are a joint creation of Tiepolo and Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna. It is believed that members of the Labia family served as models for the frescoes. The rest of the front rooms, of course, pale in comparison with the dance hall, but, nevertheless, they also deserve attention. For example, the Green Damascus Salon features an inlaid marble fireplace and huge frescoes by Pompeo Batoni.

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Topic: Palazzo Labia description and photos - Italy: Venice.