MANOPOLA, Bartolomeo
(active 1580-1610 in Venice)

Palazzo Priuli Ruzzini: Façade

1590s
Photo
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice

The construction of the present palace took place after a fire in 1586 which burned down some of the houses of the Ruzzini family. The palace overlooks Campo Santa Maria Formosa on one side, and Rio del Paradiso on the other, and still maintains a water entrance, which once was the main entry.

The façade overlooking the campo preludes the Baroque period. The architect paid more attention to the decorative details than to the structure. The short pilasters, the spare constructional elements, the attic window buttressed by scrolls demonstrate that Manopola studied the designs of Sebastiano Serlio (1475-c. 1554), the architect and theorist, whose highly influential "L'archittetura, " published posthumously in 1584, was one of the first architectural treatises in a modern language that was printed with illustrations in sixteenth-century Europe.

The façade facing onto the Paradiso canal is a typical example of a sixteenth-century façade.

The picture shows the façade of the palace, presently a luxury hotel, on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa.