Palazzo Grimani di Santa Maria Formosa

History

The palace can be reached by land from Ruga Giuffa. The water entry, used in ancient times, is located on the San Severo canal. The original medieval building was built at the confluence of the canals of San Severo and Santa Maria Formosa, and purchased later by Antonio Grimani, who became a doge in 1521, and subsequently passed on as a legacy, in the third decade of the 16th century, to the grandsons Vettore Grimani, Procurator de Supra for the Venetian Republic, and Giovanni Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia, who refurbished the old structure inspired by architectural models taken from classicism. The two brothers wanted to give "modern" forms to the building and had it decorated with fresco cycles and elegant stucco. In 1558, at the death of Vettore, Giovanni became the sole owner of the building: he added an extension of the palace. Decorating the rooms were many artists including Federico Zuccari, architect of the monumental staircase, and Camillo Mantovano. The patriarch Giovanni Grimani set up his refined collection of antiques, including sculptures, marbles, vases, bronzes and gems, in the rooms of the palace. In 1587 he donated the collection of sculptures and gems to the Serenissima: after his death the first ones were placed in the anti-room of the Marciana Library and today they are the founding nucleus of the National Archaeological Museum of Venice.

Until 1865, it was property of the Santa Maria Formosa branch of the Grimani family. But the palace had deteriorated and passed through several owners, until in 1981 it was acquired by the Superintendence for Architectural and Environmental Heritage of the city of Venice and became state property. Opened to the public on December 20, 2008, after a long restoration, it is currently a museum belonging to the Veneto Museum Pole …

Main rooms

The marble entrance portal leads into the large courtyard. The original medieval building, an L-shape plan, was restructured and redecorated between 1537 and 1540 by brothers Vettore and Giovanni Grimani, according to a style inspired by the ancient Roman domus. In 1558, Giovanni patronized the addition of a further wing, enclosing in a square the central courtyard. The loggias that were created were adorned with classical statues. The loggia in front of the entrance of the museum was entirely frescoed with plant motifs and completed by the wonderful stucco baskets filled with fruits and vegetables.

Between 1563 and 1565 the barrel vault of the staircase leading to the portego or passing salon of the main floor was sumptuously decorated by a young Federico Zuccari, who had trained in Rome, with allegorical frescoes referring to the virtues of his client Giovanni, completed by grotesques and stucco reliefs with mythological creatures. The stuccos reproduce some antique cameos from the Giovanni Grimani collection. Overall, the grand staircase bears comparing to the Scala d'Oro of Palazzo Ducale and with the entrance to the Marciana Library.

This room owes its name to the tapestries embellished with gold yarns that once covered the walls. Today we can admire some pieces from the collection of antiques by Giovanni Grimani, donated in 1587 to the Public Statuary of the Serenissima (now the National Archaeological Museum). The plaster statue of the Laocoon Group is an eighteenth-century plaster copy of an Ancient Roman sculpture in the Vatican museum; this plaster replica was collected by Cardinal Domenico Grimani.

The ceiling of the room, known as Sala a Fogliami or "Room of Foliage," was painted in the 1560s by Camillo Mantovano. It owes its name to a luxurious decoration of the ceiling with trees, plants and flowers: a forest inhabited by numerous animals, frequently with predatory attitudes, and rich in symbolic meanings. In the lunettes surmounted by grotesques, complex figurations in the form of a rebus possibly allude to the long and troubled heresy trial suffered by the patriarch Giovanni Grimani. …

DOMUS GRIMANI 1594 -2019

On 7 May 2019 the exhibition "DOMUS GRIMANI 1594 - 2019" was inaugurated. It celebrates the temporary return of many masterpieces of Greek, Roman and Renaissance art, belonging to Giovanni Grimani's collection and their relocation to the rooms where they found until the patriarch's death.

The exhibit itinerary develops in a row of rooms (Camaron d'Oro, Sala a Fogliami, Antitribuna) leading to the Tribuna, through the only original entrance to it.

In addition to the sculptures from the National Archaeological Museum of Venice, there are also exhibited some 16th-century furnishings from other Venetian museums and private collections, with the intention of recreating an aristocratic 16th century residence: one of the most noteworthy works, a tapestry of Medici manufacture based on a design by Francesco Salviati, two wooden cabinets, bronzes by Jacopo Sansovino and Tiziano Aspetti, two bronze firedogs by Girolamo Campagna and a table inlaid with ancient marbles and lapis lazuli belonged to the Grimani family.