Simone Decker - Cà del Duca

The palace, situated on the Canale Grande, only a short walk from the Palazzo Grassi, will from hereto forth be the site for Luxembourg's future participations in the Venice Biennial.It owes its name to the Duke Sforza of Milan who entrusted its construction to the architect Filarete in 1453. The project matched the ambition of its commissioner, setting out as it did to be the largest palace in Venice. But the Republic of Venice, never one to let anyone undercut her authority, expropriated the Duke Sforza, and the construction, which had barely begun, was suspended. The edifice was eventually completed by the Republic, the result being more modest in its proportions. Only the foundations and the angle of the palace, its column and the beginning of the "bugnato" facade show any trace of this past, a project that was to be the first example of Renaissance architecture on the lagoon.Titian used the building as his studio when he worked on the paintings for the Doges' Palace before the Cà del Duca became the property of the Nani-Mocenigo family, relatives of the Le Gallais. For many years open to the public, the space housed Count Marino Nani-Mogenico's collection of porcelain and the Asian art collection belonging to Hugues Le Gallais, a former Ambassador of the Grand Duchy to the United States. It was Le Gallais who turned it into a museum, inaugurated in 1963.The Venetian architects Francesco da Mosto and Vanni Molinari are in charge of restoring the exhibition spaces.