On my way to the bookshop.... Palazzo Franchetti & Palazzo Loredan

When I cross the Accademia Bridge heading towards the bookshop, I hardly notice them. This is the main problem of us Venetians - we hardly realize the beauty we are surrounded by. But I suppose this is part of living in a city where every single stone has a history and, most of the times, a very long and famous one.

Palazzo Franchetti and the Grand Canal

From the very top of the Accademia Bridge you can spot it in all its spledour. Palazzo Franchetti faces the Grand Canal with an imposing air of superiority and stillness, as if Time had stopped to keep up the fantasies of tourists and Venetians.
In these days the palace is one of the two main venues of Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti (a.k.a Regio Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti when there was the monarchy - not by chance, in their palazzos, you can find many statues dedicated to the former sovereigns of Italy).



Palazzo Loredan on the Campo Santo Stefano

The Istituto Veneto is one of the few Italian institutions - along with the (Regia) Società Geografica Italiana, - which is comparable, in terms of size and prestige, to similar scholarly associations in the UK. The Royal Geographical Society is just an example.
It takes an interest, since Austrian times, in Science, Literature and Art and it organizes many intriguing lectures and activities.
Its central office is Palazzo Loredan, another of those wonderful Venetian palaces which has, though, its own peculiarity - it develops in length and not in height...



Yet coming back to Palazzo Franchetti... Did you know that in Austrian times it used to be the official residence of the Governor of Lombardo-Veneto? And if you take a look at its grandiosity, you immediately realize that it is not comparable to Venetian standards.The palace itself is a fake, actually, having been restored by the Austrians in a neo-gothic style during their presence in Venice.

When the Austrians left the Serenissima, baron Moisè Franchetti, a very influential Jewish banker who had been instrumental in the agriculture revival of Emilia Romagna (and for this effort had been ennobled by King Victor Emmanuel II), bought the Palazzo and went to live there with his family. You can still spot his stone-carved monogram, here and there, on a staircase or possibly above a window.
To this family belonged also Raimondo Nanuk Franchetti, one of Ernest Hemingway's best friends. They would go goose hunting in Nanuk's estate in Friuli and then back to Venice, to have a Venetian dinner at Harry's Bar.
Raimondo Franchetti, the father of Nanuk, was one of the greatest Italian explorers. He contributed to mapping the region called Doncalia in the Great Rift Valley, in those days belonging to Italy. He was one of those Europeans in love with Africa - one could but mention Finch-Hatton, Stanley and Livingstone, the Italian Cornoldi, Savorgnan di Brazzà and many others.
Funny thing, he christened all his children with exotic names: Lauretana who was known in family circles as Simba ('lion' in swahili), Lorian, Afdera (a volcano in Doncalia) and Nanuk (the name of the White Bear, an Inuit god of the North).