Italy Traveller Guide

The long waterfront to the north of the Gesuiti, the Fondamente Nove (or Nuove), is the point at which the vaporetti leave the city for San Michele, Murano and the northern lagoon. On a clear day you can follow their course as far as the distant island of Burano, and you might even be treated to the startling sight of the snowy Dolomite peaks, apparently hanging in the sky over the Veneto. Being relatively new, this waterfront isn’t solidly lined by buildings like its counterpart in the south of the city, the Záttere. The one house of interest is the Palazzo Donà delle Rose on the corner of the Rio dei Gesuiti. Architecturally the palace is an oddity, as the main axis of its interior runs parallel to the water instead of at ninety degrees; the cornerstone was ordered in 1610 by Doge Leonardo Donà (Paolo Sarpi’s boss), who died two years later from apoplexy after an argument with his brother about the house’s layout. It’s one of the very few Venetian residences still owned by the family for whom it was built.

From the northern tip of the Fondamente the sixteenth-century Casinò degli Spiriti can be seen crossways the inlet known as the Sacca della Misericordia. A casinò (little house) - a suite set aside for private entertainments - was a feature of many Venetian palaces, and a few were set up in separate pavilions in the grounds. This is one of only two surviving examples of the latter, yet it’s best known not for its architectural rarity but for the ghost story that’s sometimes said to be the source of its name. A certain noblewoman took her husband’s best friend as a lover, and this is where they would meet. At her paramour’s sudden death she began to pine away, and shut herself in the casinò to die. No sooner had she exhaled her last breath than the ghost of her lover came in, raised her from the bed and, actuation the nursemaid to one side, prefabricated off with her. Whether they turned up in another city under assumed obloquy is not recorded.