In a small courtyard, desolate and dreary, reached after crossing the
Ponte di Paglia and one or two other bridges on the Riva dei Schiavoni,
is the Palazzo Badoer, a fourteenth-century palace, the ogeed arches of
the windows in which are more than usually good; whilst the beauty of
the central window, inclosed within a square line of moulding, within
which the wall is incrusted with marble relieved by medallions, is very
great. The structure of this, as of most Venetian palaces, is brick
which has been frescoed; but it is now in a very lamentable state of
decay. The balconies of the lower windows are clearly modern, but there
is a trace of the original balustrade between the shafts of the windows
in the second stage; and in front of the side-lights to the upper window
is a grille of iron-work taking the place of a balcony, and composed of
a combination of quatrefoils. The arrangement of the windows in this
front is not absolutely regular, but still the centre is very marked;
and though it is of early date, the true use of the arch nowhere
appears. The usual[52] dog-tooth cornice finishes the walls under the
eaves. In the courtyard of this house are two of the wells which give so
much character to all the courts in Venice. They appear generally to be
of early date, and look, frequently, like the capitals of large columns,
taken down and placed upon the ground. Those in front of the Palazzo
Badoer are perhaps more like fonts.
Another palace, also said to belong to one of the Badoer family, placed
at the junction of two canals very near the Scuola di San Giorgio and
the Greek Church, is remarkable as being now one of the very few houses
in which the red brick walls are still in their original state, and not
defiled by compo, paint, or whitewash. This house has three fronts, with
one old doorway on the canal, and two on the land. The back facing the
Campo San Severo has an unusually fine and lofty entrance, a square
doorway with a pointed arch above (which I suppose once held tracery),
and a group of five windows with circles or disks of marble in their
spandrels above. Amongst other things it is remarkable as an instance
of the way in which windows were sometimes placed absolutely at the very
angles of the building. Judging by the similarity of its tracery to that
above the Porta della Carta in the Ducal Palace, this angle window must
date from about 1400 to 1430. It has a very bold shaft at the angle,
whilst the jambs have pilasters ornamented at their angles by a twisted
cord-like moulding, which is frequently met with in the later work.
There is a small angle-shaft elaborately twisted just above this window,
and very much like the angle-shafts of the Ducal Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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