Musei: Series II | The Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro and Grimani Palace (Episode 7)

Episode 7: The Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro is an art museum located in the Ca' d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The Baron Giorgio Franchetti (1865–1922), was born to a prominent family of Turin. Initially trained in a military school, he preferred the study of music and collecting art. He married in 1890 the Baroness Maria Hornstein Hohenstoffeln. However, by 1891 he had moved to Venice, and there soon purchased the then dilapidated Ca' d'Oro and set upon restoring the building, as possible, to its 15th-century layout.

Franchetti also traveled widely to purchase objects for the palace, including in Paris the palace's original well head (1427) by Bartolomeo Bon. He supervised much of the restoration, added the mosaic floor collections, and constructed a chapel to house his Mantegna St Sebastian. The inner courtyard mosaic was designed by the Baron himself. His grandson helped further his wish, stated in 1916, to make the house and his collection a museum. The palace officially became a museum inaugurated on January 18, 1927.

The Palazzo Grimani of Santa Maria Formosa is a State museum, located in Venice in the Castello district, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa. The Palazzo constitutes for the city of Venice a particularly precious novelty for the originality of the architecture, for the decorations and for its history.

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.

Episode 8: https://rumble.com/v5xlgfz-musei-series-ii-the-uffizi-gallery-episode-8.html