Fondaco dei Turchi

The Palace was built around 1225 commissioned by Giacomo Palmieri, founder of the Pesaro family. After several changes of ownership, in 1621 the building was converted to commercial office of the Turkish merchants, realizing warehouses, washrooms, facilities and bedrooms. The Palace remained in this function from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. In 1860, the City of Venice bought it, used it as a Museum. Since 1923 houses the Civic Museum of Natural History. The Turkish Fondaco is on two floors. Subject of a restoration in order to rebuild it as similar as possible to the original, designed by Federico Berchet, still has some elements of the typical structure of the Fondaco in Venetian-Byzantine style. The facade has a floor marked ten arches and a loggia with eighteen smaller arches. On either side, two towers on three levels. The entire facade is topped by battlements, absent in the first building. Many of the decorations made in the restoration are the result of recovery or false sculptures inspired by Byzantine architecture. The rooms of the hotel overlook a central courtyard with arcades.