Complesso dei Palazzi Mocenigo

Mocenigo Palaces constitute an architectural complex located in the St. Mark district, overlooking the Grand Canal. A long and uneven facade consists of four buildings, from left to right are called: "New House", "Black House" and "Old House". The "Black" and "Old" were one residence, while the "New" was the home of a second branch of the family, originally from Milan. The "Old" is the first property of the Mocenigo family, whose renovation was carried out in the seventeenth century, by architect Francesco Contin. It features a simple look: spread over four floors separated by cornices, with water portal flanked with large openings, a mezzanine loft and two main floors differentiated for the different shape of the balcony, projecting only the first floor, characterized by a trifora flanked by projecting balconies. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Mocenigo have built the "Black" to tie it to existing Palace. Here, in the nineteenth century, he lived and wrote the English poet Lord Byron. The building, clearly of Renaissance, has in its main floor the cornerstone: marked by serliana central flanked by single, repeated according to the same pattern, creating a strong sense of symmetry. The openings are decorated with bas-reliefs. Most valuable element of the composition were the frescoes of the facades, made by Benedetto Caliari and Giuseppe Alabardi. The "New" is the Palace at the far left of the complex, one that presents the facade of greatest visual impact of difficult attribution, dating from the Renaissance period, seems inspired by Palladio for the presence of columns and capitals, but it is often attributed to Alessandro Vittoria. Characterized by the imposing of the three central openings: the portal water, surrounded by four small windows, and the two overlapping serliane, adorned by a projecting balcony, it has large openings side, with triangular pediments and curved. All elements are contained in a complex pattern of frames and profiles, which marks the facade and gives it dynamism. On the back, there are two courts connected to a garden by an underground monumental.