Ca' Tron. Building History Aroun a Ventian Palace

BUILDING HISTORY AROUND A VENETIAN PALACE edited by Francesca Rognoni and Vitale Zanchettin

BUILDING HISTORY AROUND A VENETIAN PALACE edited by Francesca Rognoni and Vitale Zanchettin

Iuav Buildings Series I

CA’ TRON Building History around a Venetian Palace edited by Francesca Rognoni and Vitale Zanchettin ISBN 979-12-5953-057-8

This work was carried out as part of the Heritage and Project – MA Architecture degree course (Università Iuav di Venezia, a. y. 2023-2024).

Didactical work curated by Francesca Rognoni and Vitale Zanchettin.

Layout and collection of materials by Edin Smajic and Maida Stualnovic.

Publisher Anteferma Edizioni Srl via Asolo 12, Conegliano, TV edizioni@anteferma.it first edition December 2023 Copyright

This book is published under a Creative Commons license Attribution – Non Commercial – Share Alike 4.0 International Printed by Press Up on FSC certified paper - Fedrigoni Splendorgel Extra White

We would like to thank Professor Francesco Musco, Director of Research of the Department of Architecture and Arts of the Università Iuav di Venezia.

Mauro Maiotti and Silvia Mader (Università Iuav di Venezia, Technical Area), Marco Gnesutta (Università di Iuav di Venezia, IR. IDE, Infrastruttura di Ricerca. Integral Design Environment), Umberto Ferro and Luca Pilot (Photographic Service and Images, Università Iuav di Venezia) also merit special thanks for their collaboration and support in the completion of this book.

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PREFACE

The Tron Palace at San Stae is one of the most historical buildings belonging to Università Iuav in Venice.

The significance of the architecture of this palace dates back to its construction as a monumental residence for the Tron family, one of the most important and old patrician families in Venice. It exemplifies the architectural articulation of the monumental palaces built on the Canal Grande between the XVI and XVIII centuries, after the construction of Leonardo Loredan’s Palace (the most impressing private stone construction of the 15th century).

It is compelling to compare the two buildings to understand the simplified architectural language of Ca’ Tron’ as a manifestation of its adherence to Venetian traditions, and first of all, to the value of uniformity.

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During the XVII century, the building had two major extensions.

However it preserved its residential function until the end of World War II. Then it came into the ownership of the Venice School of Architecture. This functional change was followed by many architectural transformations and structural consolidation, continuing in recent years. Despite alteration, the character of the residential space and other features are largely preserved. The main room, salone passante on the first floor, for example, is still adorned with the aisle of paintings on canvas, created by the French painter Louis Dorigny (1654-1742) for this room.

Over the centuries, to satisfy practical needs, different transformations were introduced, and today we recognize these transformations as reinterpretations of typical Venetian solutions for windows, floors, and roofing systems.

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Opportunity was taken to observe the significant evolution of this historic building, as a part of the course Heritage and Project in the academic year 2022-23. This edifice was used as a case study to understand modern solutions for traditional buildings in Venice.

Through analysis of the minutest details, discussions on the past, and inspections of a series of historical images, maps, texts, and paintings, it was possible to define a proposal that is a starting point for further studies. The study was developed by bibliographical analysis of historical reconstruction, recognition of social usage, and analysis of the various materials used in the construction and restoration process.

Groups of students, coming from very different countries, participated in developing various elements of research dedicated to different parts of this building, located in the heart of Venice.

This book results from the work of connecting texts, graphics reconstruction, technical surveys, and photos dedicated to the palace, reviewed by Francesca Rognoni.

Texts, historical iconographies, and photographs were created and collected by the students during the semester. Part of the survey had been drafted previously by the Technical Office of the Università Iuav di Venezia, by Marco Gnesutta, from IR.IDE (Infrastruttura di Ricerca. Integral Design Environment, Università Iuav), and

by LTS srl for UniSky srl. As an additional contribution to the knowledge of the palace, a new survey of the garden and the interior courtyard was expressly produced, thanks to a collaboration between students and Marco Gnesutta.

Among possible approaches to investigating the building, we preferred discussions on cultural history without losing direct connection

with materials and technical surveys, recognizing the contemporary use of ancient fabbrica. With this initiative we tried to demonstrate the importance of material and immaterial values in a building that now houses the School of Architecture, but in which, at the same time, it is the building itself that teaches architecture.

Vitale Zanchettin

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SUMMARY

01

02

INTRODUCTION

BUILDING CONTEXT

Notes

12

Political and Social Dynamics 66

Drawings

32

Neighbourhood Analysis

74

Architecture, Functions and Daily Life

84

Francesca Rognoni Marco Gnesutta (IR.IDE, Iuav) Ufficio Tecnico Università Iuav di Venezia

Photo Portfolio

Tao Jiahuang (China)

8

48

Lorenz Auer (Germany)

Ayushi Deepak Ahuja (India)

Damla Dirik (Turkey)

03

04

ART & ARCHITECTURE

RESTORATION

The Main Staircase

104

Main Staircase: Portal on the First Floor

110

Piano Nobile Door Frames

116

Zhang Yihan (China)

Li Tianlong (China)

Theresa Bandmann (Germany)

Ca’ Tron’s Door Handles

124

Introduction to First Floor Portego Decoration

132

Dorigny’s Portego Paintings

140

Guarana’s Frescoes

154

Stucco Decorations

162

Stuccoes in Ca’ Tron’s Portego and Apartments

172

Terrazzo Floors

180

Courtyard

192

Chen Xinyan (China)

The Ground Floor Window System

208

Beams in the Restoration System

220

Roof

230

A Competition of Ideas for the Restoration Project

240

Luo Mengting (China)

Li Shaochuan (China) Pan Min (China)

Mohammadamin Hassas (Iran)

Ziqi Xiang (China)

Loredana Baholli (Italy)

Daniela Reina (Colombia) Tao Jiahuang (China)

Lester Gutiérrez (Nicaragua) Sophia Voelskow Vallespir (Germany) Mariam Gomurashvili and Giorgi Chabalukha (Georgia)

05 BIBLIOGRAPHY 9

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NOTES CA’ TRON IN VENICE. NOTES FOR A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE PALACE

FRANCESCA ROGNONI

“Sono etiandio sul Canal grande memorabili et di gran corpo, i Palazzi del Duca di Ferrara a San Iacomo del Orio […] Del Duca di Milano à San Samuello […] fatto à bugne di pietra rozza […] De i Cornari della Piscopia, che fu già del Rè di Cipro […] De i Gussoni al Ponte da Noale […] De i Troni a Santo Eustachio, con giusta simmetria et di honorata apparenza” (Sansovino 1581, p. 388)1.

Francesco Sansovino’s mention of Ca’ Tron, included in the ninth chapter of his famous book Venetia città nobilissima (1581), opens the critical tradition of the San Stae palace, currently owned by Università Iuav di Venezia.

Sansovino’s opinion comes a few decades after the first restoration of the palace was completed. In fact, while the rifabbri14

ca (reconstruction) of the house had concluded by the last quarter of the 15th century, around the middle of the following century the palace underwent a major renovation of its façades, whose “giusta simmetria” and “onorata apparenza” will earn the house a mention among the “memorable and full-bodied” buildings of Sansovino’s Venetia (Sansovino, 1581, p. 388).

Approximately a century and a half after the publication of Sansovino’s book, the Tron palace again appears in a series dedicated to Venetian mirabilia: the Admiranda Urbis Venetae, a collection of drawings produced probably between 1730 and 1740

by Antonio Visentini (1688-1782) and his pupils for the British Consul Joseph Smith (1674-1770)2. Included in the book are four illus-

1. Ca’ Tron, view from the Canal Grande.

Photo: Umberto Ferro, Luca Pilot, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2019.

Cover page: Ca’ Tron’s door in the courtyard.

Photo: Tao Jiahuang, 2023.

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trations dedicated to Ca’ Tron: a plan of the palace, the elevation of the façade towards the Grand Canal, and a plan and an elevation of the garden ballroom (Bassi, 1976, pp. 9-37). These drawings, however, do not show either the irregularities of the palace’s layout or the profound transformations that the building had undergone during the 17th century, especially with regard to the main building.

In the elevation, for example, the façade towards the Grand Canal is “cleaned up” of all asymmetries: neither the second water gate (at the eastern end of the façade) nor the slight shift to the right of the openings in the western bay are present. Consistently and even more radically, the plan is also “normalized”: the asymmetries and irregularities in the distribution are missing, and the proportions between the great halls and the lateral rooms have been modified to balance out the general layout and emphasize the tripartition of the plan, typical of Venetian palazzi. Moreover, the side wings, built in the 1680s by Baldassarre Longhena as part of a larger renovation of the palazzo, are completely absent from the drawing.

In spite of all that, Admiranda’s drawings are an essential source for the study of the building, par16

ticularly concerning the garden pavilion. In fact, the illustrations dedicated to the ballroom are the only visual witness of the design of this pavilion, which was designed by Antonio Gaspari between 1691 and 1696, and demolished in the second half of the 19th century. The pavilion had an almost square layout. It was divided into three naves of two bays each, with arches resting on twin piers. The main front was divided into three levels: the first order displayed three large squared openings divided by rusticated columns, and rusticated pilasters at the corners; the second had arched openings with donning mascheroni in their keystones, and coupled Corinthian columns; finally, three rectangular windows opened in the attic floor.

Admiranda illustrations do not provide information on the decorative apparatus of both the palace and pavilion, even if at that time it already comprised Louis Dorigny’s (1654-1742) teleri with the Stories from Genesis in the portego on the first piano nobile (c. 1685) and frescoes with the Muses and the Triumph of Hercules in the garden ballroom (1700) (Patassini, Favilla, Rugolo, 2006).

2. Ca’ Tron, facade toward the Canal Grande after the 2020-2021 restoration campaign.

3. Ca’ Tron, facade toward the courtyard and garden.

4. Ca’ Tron, entrance.

Photo: Umberto Ferro, Luca Pilot, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2021 (fig. 2), 2019 (fig. 3), 2017 (fig. 4).

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The latter had considerably deteriorated by the middle of the 18th century, so in 1766-1770 it was replaced by a fresco with the Fall of the Giants by the well-known Veronese artist Jacopo Guarana (17201808), also responsible for some fresco decorations in the mezzanine and piano nobile apartments (Patassini, Favilla, Rugolo, 2006).

And it is precisely this fresco that deserves the palace a new mention in Venetian art literature. In the 1815 Guida per la città di Venezia, all’amico delle belle Arti, the man of letters Gianantonio Moschini, in fact, wrote: “Non lungi dalla chiesa di Santo Eustachio […] si trovano i palazzi Contarini, Tron e Giovanelli. La gran sala del secondo fu dipinta a fresco da Jacopo Guarana” (Moschini, 1815, vol. II, p. I, pp. 550)3.

Mentions of Ca’ Tron became more frequent in art books and Venice guides between the middle of the 19th and the early 20th centuries (Zanotto, 1856, p. 608; Fontana, 1865, pp. 61-65; Tassini, 1863, p. 676; Douglas, 1907; Lorenzetti, 1926, p. 640). Among these, it is worth recalling, at least, the Nuovissima guida di Venezia e delle isole della sua laguna by Francesco Zanotto (1856), Venice on Foot by Hugh A. Douglas (1907), and Giangiacomo Fon18

tana’s Cento palazzi fra i più celebri di Venezia sul Canalgrande e nelle vie interne dei Sestieri descritti quali monumenti d’arte e di storia (1865) (Zanotto, 1856; Douglas, 1907; Fontana, 1865).

Zanotto’s guide not only is the first to propose a date for the palace, based on a stylistic analysis (Stile del decadimento. Fine secolo XVI), but also adds information on the recent change of ownership of the palace and its current use: “Palazzo Tron ora Donà delle Rose […] Il signor Zen tiene in questo palazzo un museo commerciale di oggetti di antichità e di belle arti” (Zanotto, 1856, p. 608)4.

Meanwhile, thanks to Douglas’ Venice on foot, Ca’ Tron makes its entrance into non-Italian tourist books. Douglas’ guide stated aim was “to assist [those who are] anxious to see more of the less visited parts of the city [...] and to answer such questions, as would probably be asked, when doing so for the first time”.

In fact, after some basic facts on the address and appearance of the palace, Douglas gives his readers a brief background on its history: “Palazzo Tron, Calle Tron, No. 3949. Faded dark brown – Fifteenth century much restored.

(G. B. 1797, Alvise Tron, and his brothers). Zanotto says that this

5. Ca’ Tron, attic floor, balcony.

Photo: Umberto Ferro, Luca Pilot, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2019.

6. Ca’ Tron, andron, west side, entrance to the secondary staircase leading to the first mezzanine floor.

Photo: Vittorio de Battisti Besi, Università Iuav di Venezia, 2023.

7. Ca’ Tron, southeast stairwell leading from the ground floor to the attic, detail of the ramps between the attic and the second floor.

Photo: Francesca Rognoni, 2023.

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December 2023 printed by Press Up, Roma

Palazzo Tron is one of the most historical buildings belonging to Università Iuav di Venezia.

The significance of its architecture dates back to its construction as a monumental residence for the Tron family, one of the most important and old Venetian patrician families.

This book is the result of an investigation of the palace based on a direct analysis of the building and bibliographic studies, to compare the materiality of the building with written and iconographical sources as a basis for historical research.

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