Photograph: Haupt and Binder
Up to date February 2025
From the road, one would by no means guess {that a} magnificent narrative of Venetian historical past, artwork, and tradition was hidden behind centuries-old plaster partitions and a set of wood doorways marked 3201.
Move via the doorway, and also you step again centuries into the Palazzo Capello Malipiero Barnabò, the Countess Anna Barnabò’s luxurious antique-filled palace with verdant gardens that spill onto Venice’s Grand Canal. Not usually open to the general public, I received a style of that life on a non-public tour of this secret Venetian palace led by native information Cristina Gregorin of Gradual Venice.
Initially constructed between the tenth and eleventh centuries because the Cà Grande of Saint Samuel by the Soranzo household, the palazzo has withstood a number of subsequent additions and modifications by the Capello household, adopted later by the Malipieros. Bought within the late nineteenth century by its present house owners, the Barnabòs, the palace underwent a serious renovation in 1951, restoring it to its eighteenth-century grandeur.
Palazzo Capello Malipiero Barnabò turned dwelling to the countess when she married into the venerable and influential Venice household greater than 30 years in the past. Anna Barnabò occupies the palace’s third flooring, an expansive house with an infinite drawing room that boasts an enormous Murano glass chandelier hanging from its frescoed ceiling.
Dripping crystals refracted the afternoon daylight, which poured via the canal-facing Venetian Byzantine arched home windows, casting shadows across the room.
From the drawing room, we entered the adjoining library, the place the countess reads and enjoys her favourite tv exhibits. The tv appeared misplaced, surrounded by such ornate decor, together with one other luminescent Murano chandelier. The palazzo’s eating room was not impressively massive (am I jaded already?), but it contained a number of vital vintage items, together with the ceramic Buddha beneath, whose head rocked forwards and backwards whenever you tapped his hand.
I first noticed the Palazzo gardens beneath via the home windows in a protracted hallway connecting the drawing room to the eating room.
Centuries-old antiques and fabulous artifacts apart, the actual magic started as I descended these historic stairs and handed via the courtyard into the backyard.
Guests entry the gardens via an enormous set of stylish doorways with a leaded glass transom emblazoned with an ornamental scrolled Barnabò “B” monogram.
Created on the finish of the eighteenth century, Palazzo Malipiero’s gardens occupy a big parcel on the Campo San Samuele. The property sits beside French enterprise icon and artwork collector François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi, a recent artwork exhibition house I visited final summer season through the Biennale. A central walkway between two symmetrical hedge-bordered decorative gardens kinds a straight website line from the again of the palazzo’s backyard to the canal.
Dialog With the Contessa About Life, Love, and Gardening
I had the glory of talking privately with the elegant countess concerning the gardens and discovered that she had designed them herself. She advised me that the gardens had been one among her prized private endeavors.
When she first turned the girl of the home, the countess knew little or no about gardening. This didn’t cease the adventurous former correspondent for the European press. Her eager curiosity in historical past, artwork, and shade led her to be taught all she wanted to design the gardens, now featured in quite a few books such The Gardens of Venice and Veneto, photographed by Alex Ramsay.
Underneath her route, a gardener now maintains the plush grounds the place the household hosts events and chic dinners, generally for his or her neighbor Pinault’s artwork openings.
As we walked the gardens collectively, the contessa described her colourful and well-traveled life earlier than and after marrying the late Depend Barnabò; first, as a toddler residing together with her household in Paris, then later as a journalist residing in Rome. On a stroll alongside the flower beds, she identified with evident satisfaction which flowers would quickly bloom: pink camellias and little white roses on one facet, blue irises, and tender pink child roses that might ultimately line the backyard’s canal frontage. Partitions of hydrangeas had been starting to sprout little buds, whereas jasmine would scent the air quickly after my departure. And though I’d seen huge quantities of attractive wisteria in every single place in Venice, someway seeing its wealthy hue towards the backdrop of the gardens’ terra cotta partitions…nicely, sigh.
A Wedding ceremony Among the many Blooms
I discovered that along with quite a few completely positioned sculptures, a big water nicely sculpted with the household coat-of-arms was moved from the courtyard to the backyard for the marriage uniting the Cappello and the Malipiero households.
The countess motioned towards the water the place Elisabetta, the bride, and Caterino, the groom, had taken their vows centuries in the past, overlooking the Grand Canal. I might nearly hear the music and see the friends of their festive apparel celebrating the newlyweds in what will need to have been one hell of a backyard marriage ceremony.
Subsequent up: My reviews from Milan Design Week, Salone del Cell, FuoriSalone–together with a day at Ventura Lambrate–-and rather more!
Nota Bene: My sponsored journey to Venice was a part of the Modenus BlogTour, which was made attainable by the next sponsors: Modenus, BLANCO, Intelligent Storage by Kessenbömer, Dekton by Cosentino, Nationwide Kitchen and Bathtub Affiliation (NKBA), and Gessi. All opinions expressed herein are uniquely mine and never indicative of any sponsor opinions or positions.
Until in any other case famous, all pictures by Robin Plaskoff Horton for City Gardens.