History of Palazzo Pisani in Santo Stefano

Façade Palace Pisani

A palazzo of luxury: 2 Kings and a Viceroy

It was in fact in this palazzo that Doge Alvise Pisani organised a splendid party with ballets on 7 May 1784 in honour of His Majesty the King of Sweden who was visiting Venice at the time.

It also housed, in 1806, the Vice-King of Italy Eugenio, as well as in 1807 the King of Bavaria

On the other hand, more sadly, it was also at Palazzo Pisani that, on 20 March 1835, the Swiss painter Léopold Robert took his own life following a disappointment in love.

The Pisani family are descendants of the Count Bassi of Pisa.

They held numerous offices and dignities in Venice, civil, military and religious, and the family also boasted a Doge, Alvise Pisani, Doge from 17 January 1735to 17 June 1741

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Plan du Palais Pisani

Map of the Palace Pisani

History of the Palais Pisani

Palazzo Pisani is the result of several different palaces built over the centuries.

Its first builder was Bartolomeo Manopola (or Monopola), a renowned architect in Venice who was “Proto” at the Doge's Palace in 1597

This was the same architect who designed the north facade of the Doge's Palace on the central courtyard with the Clock Tower.

He therefore completed the first phase of Palazzo Pisani in Santo Stefano in 1614 - 1615

This palace, one of the largest in Venice, around 30 metres wide and 110 metres long, already represented, in its very first version of 1615, a “folly”.

At the time, the Pisani family who built it worked as bankers, themselves coming from a line of a banking family dating back to the 15th century.

They therefore had the necessary means to build a palace of this scale.

The façade of the Palace Pisani Indeed this first phase of the Palace alone cost two hundred thousand ducats, which at the time represented an incredible sum for the construction of a Palace.

A hundred years after its construction, in 1728, it was Almoro Pisani, brother of the Doge Alvise Pisani, who decided to further enlarge the Palazzo with the help of a new architect from Padua, Girolamo Frigimelica, who took the opportunity to connect two of the wings of the Palazzo Pisani with floors of superimposed loggias.

Two courtyards were also created and Palazzo Pisani, which had only one piano nobile in 1615, was also enhanced, all in a new Baroque-inspired architecture contrasting with the more massive Manopola.

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