In 1525, the Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti, and his Dogaressa, Benedetta Vendramin, acquired this palace from the noble Venetian Pisani family. In the years when they lived there, the elected Most Serene Prince oversaw some of the grandest and most daunting episodes in the history of the Venetian Republic. Mercenary wars, fire and bubonic plague, heresy and inquisition all afflicted a city-state trading empire that at one time or another surged out into the eastern Mediterranean as far as Greece, Cyprus, and Constantinople.
Our favorite window into that time and culture cracked open in 1998 with the movie Dangerous Beauty, starring the incomparable Catherine McCormick as the Honest Courtesan and poet Veronica Franco. The decadence at the heart of a Republic that prized freedom, learning, and initiative in men and prostitutes—while enslaving its proper wives as ignorant engines of reproduction—is set against a backdrop of wealth and aesthetic brilliance such as the world has rarely seen.
That elegant, faintly seedy decadence endures today in a city of sinking architectural treasures, malodorous, polluted lagoons, and hordes of the invasive species the locals call tourists. One reason we love this particular Doge's private palace as a hotel is that it sits in the Cannaregio Sestiere, a small, but significant distance from the madness of Rialto and Piazza San Marco. In winter, when we usually arrive, the water taxi drops us off at the hotel's private dock into an opulently furnished utopia with all of the luxuries and none of the agonies of its medieval origins.
This was Elizabeth Taylor's favorite hotel—speaking of decadence—and the first time we arrived, we asked for her favorite room. Whether we actually slept in her quarters was immaterial (and in Italy, you always have to wonder about assurances like that). What mattered was that, for a few days, we were given a glimpse of life at the top of an ancient and vanished era.
The details really didn't matter.
To reserve a room…
Find the official website here.
Or call the hotel direct at: +39041794611
Watch the trailer for the movie Dangerous Beauty: