“If there is anything that can compete in beauty with Venice is the reflection of this city on the Canal Grande at the sunset.”
Peggy Guggenheim
The AbanoRitz Hotel is part of the Consorzio Ville Venete: villas, castles, gardens and historic houses to discover and enjoy the Veneto region between culture, food and wine, sport, relaxation and events.
On the 4th of November we had the honor of a guided visit at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection by the invitation of Karole B. P. Vail, the niece of the mythic Peggy Guggenheim, who is the director, since more than two years, of this fantastic reality, on the traces of her grandmother.
A unique experience! After a short drive along our rich Riviera del Brenta, you will arrive at the magnificent Villa Foscari “La Malcontenta”, a majestic Palladian villa not open to the public, but with a very interesting history. This one faces to the Terminal Fusina, historical gate of the south of the lagoon, and leaving the car in the comfortable, ample and guarded parking, you embark for the first real excursion: the arrival in Venice through the sea. The landing is just few steps from St Mark’s Square, to the Zattere quarter, more precisely in front of the Church of Santa Maria del Rosario, the greatest example of a convent complex of the XVIII century. Inside it you can find a big harmony: the beautiful ceiling of Tiepolo composed by three big squares with L’apparizione della Vergine a San Domenico (The apparition of the Virgin to St Dominic), L’istituzione del Rosario (the institution of the Rosary) and La gloria di San Domenico (the glory of St Dominic) and different monochromes. But we find other important authors like Giambattista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci and Gianmaria Morlaiter. Not forgetting the painting-piece by Tintoretto representing the Crucifixion, restored by Piazzetta on the occasion of the transfer from the nearby church.
At the landing, after a quickly visit at the church, you may easily reach the Guggenheim museum and thanks to an agreement, our guests will be able to enjoy few benefits for the visits:
- Discount of 2,00 Euro on the ticket price at the entry of the museum.
- “Skip the line” at the ticket office.
- Guided visits with facilitated prices.
- On demand, laboratories for children between 4 and 10 years old on Sundays from 3 to 4.30 p.m. (booking necessary within the Friday before).
Palace Venier dei Leoni (of Lions) hosts the Peggy Guggenheim Collection since many years. A location that is an unfinished masterpiece of architecture, known in fact as the unfinished palace. The building stared in 1748 on a project of Lorenzo Boschetti. In the Corner Museum of Venice there is a model of how it should have been once finished. The magnificent classical façade would have been as a counterweight to the Corner Palace in the opposite side and this could be one of the possible reasons why the work remained unfinished: the Corner family was worried it could outdo the greatness and magnificence of their own palace. It is said that the association with lions is due to the fact that in the garden was once held a lion, but it still a legend: it is more likely that the name comes from the lion heads in Istrian stone decorating the facade at the water level.
In the beginning of the XX century the palace was owned by the eccentric Marquise Luisa Casati, well known in the artistic world of that period. In the end of 1948 Peggy Guggenheim, woman of a crucial importance in the development of art in XX century, buys Venier Palace moving there. Until 1979, when she passed away, she decide to open the doors of the Palace and the Collection to the public, giving them to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation then.
You can find all kind of information at the reception of the AbanoRitz Hotel, so we wait for you for a one-of-a-kind journey of relax, wine & food and culture!
