Ca’ Rezzonico ballroom

In Venice there is no shortage of ballrooms.
Some are still privately owned and generally not accessible, others are open on request, some others have been musealized and are usable as spectators. In this text, I will propose a description of the last Venetian ballroom built by a noble family in the city in the Rococo era, and the largest private Venetian ballroom: that of Ca' Rezzonico.
We should remember that the ballroom has not always existed in Venice. The Venetian private housing typology, since the beginning, was structured so that the internal spaces could serve for a strongly commercial prerogative. The first floor, intended for the conservation and storage of goods, was articulated around a long passing room called pòrtego. The tripartite modulation of the central portego and smaller rooms on the sides, used on the first floor to import and stock mercantile goods, was replicated on the upper floors. The portego on the first noble floor performed multiple functions: a large entrance, a reception room in which to show the family's deeds, a passageway to the various areas of the house. Larger buildings also had a portego on the second noble floor, which was not rarely converted into a painting gallery. In this context, any private celebrations occupied spaces not specifically designed for the purpose.
It was a family of non-traditional nobles to import the typology of the ballroom, which is a room deliberately prepared for social occasions and parties: the Zenobios. Perhaps just to break away from tradition and stand out from other families, the Zenobio created a huge ballroom in their new Palazzo near the Carmini Church, decorated with rich stuccoes and canvases, in the 1690s.
Not even to say that quickly, thanks to a social turning point particularly devoted to luxurious celebrations and rather expensive pastimes, the ballroom became a real fashion in Venice. Many families renovated the old buildings to transform the portego into a ballroom, or built one brand new.

The ballroom built from the Rezzonicos by Giorgio Massari had to meet the specific needs of self-celebration of this house, originally from Como, taken over by the Venetian nobility in the mid-seventeenth century. As is known, the palazzo had been founded for the Bon family a century earlier with a design by Baldessarre Longhena, and the Baroque architect had not conceived a hall in the original project. Left unfinished for financial reasons, it was the Rezzonico family who bought the unfinished house in 1750, and architect Giorgio Massari finished it in record time. Massari added a water door along the rio di San Barnaba, created a monumental entrance door in Istrian stone, a staircase leading to the hall to be envied by a king, and the largest ballroom that Venice had ever seen before. To decorate the hall with frescoes, in an explosion of enthusiasm for the architectural trompe-l'oeil, were Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna for the quadrature and Giambattista Crosato for the figurative parts.
The room occupies two floors in height and is flooded with natural light that comes from three fronts. For night parties, the servants lit the numerous candles of the splendid gilded wooden and brass chandeliers, which can still be seen today.

The decoration of the hall, from the iconographic point of view, proposes rather canonical themes for the European aristocratic praise.
In the center of the ceiling is the chariot of the sun pulled by four horses appears. It is a symbol of light, of knowledge, of power that illuminate the earth. The sun is depicted as "a bold, naked young man, with golden hair, scattered with rays". It is a metaphor for patrons, landlords, whose fame and glory shine like a sun across the globe. Therefore, on the sides, the personifications of the four continents are shown, depicted exactly as described by Cesare Ripa in his Iconology.

Europe is a woman dressed royally because "she is queen of the whole world" and shows abundant cornucopias with all sorts of fruits; she brings with a temple, books, a horse, geometric and musical instruments because in all these disciplines Europe - little modestly - has triumphed. A vase full of crowns and scepters flank it, because great men of government are from this land.

Continuing counterclockwise, you come across America, in the guise of a naked woman, dark-skinned, covered with colorful feathers, also recalled by the presence of a parrot. She holds a bow and arrows in his hand, and an alligator is seen below.

Africa is a dark-skinned woman accompanied by exotic animals, including an elephant, a lion and a poisonous snake. She wears corals and pearls on his neck and ears, and shows corn spikes.

Finally we see Asia, a beautiful woman richly dressed with a flower crown on her head. On here left there is an incense burner, to remember the production of spices and perfumes. She is accompanied by a camel "a very animal of Asia, and they use it more than any other animal".

One more figurative element jumps to the eye of the spectator who enters the hall: the giant coat of arms of the Rezzonico family. It is divided in this way: the first quarter shows a silver cross on a red field, as a reminder that the family came from Como; the second and fourth quarters show a tower on a blue field, probably commemorating the ancestral Della Torre family from whom the Rezzonico derived; the last quarter displays red and silver bandage and is typical of Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, bishop of Padua, and later future Pope Clement XIII. The double-headed eagle is shown in the center as the Rezzonicos were also barons of the Holy Roman Empire.

Around the hall, there are many smaller episodes related to Apollo, the Sun God in his various vicissitudes with Daphne, Marsyas, Coronis, Python, Clizia, and the zodiac signs: as if to say that the fate of some lineage is written in the firmament.