Palazzo Adoldo: A Renaissance Residential Palace in Venice
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Venetian
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
History
Palazzo Adoldo is a Renaissance residential palace in Venice, Italy, built for the Adoldo family in the first half of the sixteenth century. Renaissance architecture drew on renewed interest in classical antiquity. The Adoldos, also known as the Adoaldos, were of Greek origin and settled in Venice during the city’s early centuries. They belonged to the Venetian patriciate, the hereditary elite whose members held high social and political standing, and contributed substantially to financing the nearby church of San Simeone Piccolo.
The family owned the island of Andros and half of Sercino. Its last descendant, Nicolò, sold those holdings to the Michieli before his death in 1432. A façade inscription states that Lucia Adoldo donated the palace to the parish of San Simeone Piccolo. It also says that the building had become unsafe and that Vittore Spiera rebuilt and enlarged it in 1520.
Remains
The palace stands in Venice’s Santa Croce district, overlooking the Grand Canal. San Simeone Piccolo is to its right and Palazzo Foscari Contarini to its left. Its façade has three main floors and a low intermediate level, or mezzanine. The ground floor is faced with white stone and has plain rectangular openings.
On each of the two main upper floors, a window with two openings occupies the center, flanked on each side by a pair of single-window openings. The central windows have Ionic columns, whose capitals are marked by scroll-shaped forms. Two stone plaques are set into the first main upper floor. At the top level, a central window has three square openings joined by an arch. Above it, the inscription BONUM EST IN DEO SPERARE, meaning “It is good to hope in God,” appears below an eagle statuette at the building’s summit.
