A Summary History of the Palazzo Dandolo: Now Royal Hotel DanieliAnonymous
History
A Summary History of the Palazzo Dandolo: Now Royal Hotel Danieli
Anonymous
Hotel Danieli (Venice, Italy); Venice (Italy) -- Description and travel
The _wines_ and _the table_ are a great speciality of the
Hotel Royal Danieli, all being of the very highest order, and its
_dining rooms_ and _restaurant_ arranged with small and separate tables,
have an unusual character all their own.
The _dining rooms_ are decorated in an entirely novel style and one
that is truly poetic. The great windows of ground glass are transformed
into eight lovely winter gardens of rare plants, which are reproduced in
the big mirrors which line the walls, and the electric light, which
hangs in delicate Venetian glass lily pendants round the ceiling,
produces a most charming and unusual effect.
The two great _restaurant_ halls are furnished in pure style of the
Empire, for all the stuffs and decorations are copied from the best
works that treat of that period, and are among the richest and choicest
of that famous epoch.
Thus, by a series of ingenious combinations these two palaces, so different
from each other in many ways, blend themselves in one harmonious and
artistic whole, and in them are united the greatest luxury with the utmost
comfort.
[Illustration: SALON OF THE DOGES]
To give an idea of the whole we will imagine that a traveler is staying
in the apartment of the Doge--which recalls all the pomp and grandeur
of old Venice--to go to the breakfast-room and restaurant we will pass
through the great Sansovino ball-room, then through the Rose saloon, by
the side of which is the music-room (style Empire), and the gallery of
tapestry and majolica, and thus reaches the Empire decorated restaurants
which we have already described.
In the evening at dinner-time the traveler would, instead, descend by
successive steps, through a Renaissance vestibule, to the beautiful
winter garden dining-halls, which, especially when lit up by the soft
radiance of the electric lilies, makes a perfect fairy scene.
Round the ball-room on the first floor runs an uncovered _loggia_,
from whence one can look down into the court of honor, or Venetian
Atrium, in which of an evening characteristic concerts are frequently
given. From the first floor the great «scala d'oro» conducts one to the
second floor, where are the spacious concert-room and various handsome
suites of ancient and modern apartments.
To the honor of the proprietors who have succeeded one another, be it
said, that although from time to time certain works have been executed
in this historic palace to adapt it to its new use as a hotel, yet not
only have the staircases, the saloons and the various apartments been
preserved just as they were, but the artistic beauties and the historic
souvenirs have been carefully respected, the stuccoes and frescoes
of the sixteenth and seventeenth century have been spared, and the
portraits and heraldic shields of the Dandolos, the Bernardos and the
Mocenigos can still be admired to-day in their original positions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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