Venice, Ca' Rezzonico reopens to the public after 8 months of major restoration work

In Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico reopens on Wednesday, June 28: the historic building that is home to the Museum of Eighteenth-Century Venice reopens its doors after major restoration work involving large parts of the palace. For the first time, more than twenty years after the opening of the Museum, it was necessary to renovate Ca’ Rezzonico, intervening according to new energy-saving parameters while respecting the magical atmosphere of an ambient museum. With the aim of improving the quality of the services offered and ensuring greater usability of the museum, work was carried out mainly on the ground floor, which was severely compromised due to the exceptional high water in November 2019.

“With this in mind,” says MUVE Foundation President Mariacristina Gribaudi, “several spaces have been designed with a careful qualitative choice of materials. The new uses see an initial functional recovery that brings together bookshop and ticket office. This is followed by a large checkroom and an entertainment room with inclusive activities open to the public, as well as the Cafeteria that, renewed in its furnishings, offers a view of the Grand Canal. In this way, citizens and visitors will be able to entertain themselves in a new museum lobby open to all, designed not only to be able to meet each other but giving a preview to the visit of the upper floors.”

As for the tour route, the reopening will be an opportunity for the public to admire new works. “The permanent collection,” explains Alberto Craievich in charge of the museum office, “will be enriched with some works that have been kept in storage for decades, such as sculptures by Antonio Corradini and Giovanni Maria Morlaiter and paintings depicting Battles by Francesco Guardi. But that’s not all: in fact, it will also be possible to admire acquisitions recently donated by private individuals such as the inlaid chest of drawers by the famous Lombard cabinetmaker Giuseppe Maggiolini, dated and signed ”Parabiago 1799,“ a gift from Giuseppe Scalabrino in memory of Gerolamo Borsani. Or even a rare sketch by Giambattista Piazzetta, depicting the Ecstasy of St. Francis, preparatory for the large canvas completed in 1729, for the Vicenza church of Araceli, which came to Ca’ Rezzonico with the legacy of Maria Francesca Tiepolo from the Civic Museum of Palazzo Chiericati. Restoration work also continues on the collections of our Foundation’s Cabinet of Drawings and Prints, housed from 2021 in the very mezzanine of Ca’ Rezzonico.”

The work on the ground floor was carried out thanks to a major donation of 450,000 euros from Coop and all consumer cooperatives, provided through the Art Bonus system.

“I want to thank the patrons who generously contribute to the restoration and protection of the artistic heritage of our city and our territory and whose donations have grown in recent years,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro stressed. “This is a virtuous example of public-private collaboration. Reopening Ca’ Rezzonico is a source of pride: we will thus be able to expand the city’s cultural offerings, with an extraordinary environmental museum that in its rooms preserves the pomp and splendor of an eighteenth-century Venetian residence, as well as presenting works from one of the happiest seasons of European art.”

“The intervention to support the reopening from November 2019 when Venice, its people and the city’s priceless artistic heritage were hit by a devastating flood,” explains Marco Pedroni, President Ancc-Coop (National Association of Consumer Cooperatives). “At that time the mechanism identified was to divert 1 percent of the sale of our branded products to this purpose, and it is thanks to the network of members and consumers of all our cooperatives that we were able to reach the important goal of 450,000 euros donated. Today we are satisfied that that contribution born from purchasing choices and strongly motivated by solidarity becomes a concrete act.”

“The support of Coop Alleanza 3.0 to the territory of Venice,” stresses Andrea Volta, deputy vice president of Coop Alleanza 3.0, “ was strong and timely during the emergency, but it did not end at the end of the period of greatest media attention, on the contrary. The Cooperative is an integral part of the territory and this means caring for it, protecting and enhancing it through constant commitment, responding promptly and concretely to the needs and requirements of the community. For this reason we have continued to work even far from the spotlight, together with the Municipal Administration and the MUVE, with the aim of getting here, today, and giving back to Venetians and the many tourists who frequent the lagoon one of the symbolic places of this city.”

Taking advantage of the period of closure of the venue that took place last October 24, the Municipal Administration and MUVE decided to supplement this funding with targeted interventions: important are those related to lighting technology on the first and third floors, where in the exhibition rooms all the halogen light fixtures were definitively replaced with new LED lights, thus also improving the enjoyment of the works on display. Some areas of the garden, with its inclusive games much loved by young visitors, were also rearranged.

Venice, Ca' Rezzonico reopens to the public after 8 months of major restoration work

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