The Palazzo Grandiben Negri is a small brick palace located facing the Rio of Ca' di Dio, adjacent to the larger Palazzo Erizzo, and diagonally across the rear of the church of San Martino in the sestiere of Castello in Venice, Italy.
History
The palace was commissioned by Nicolò Grandiben of the equestrian (non-noble) Grandiben family. A son of a 15th-century merchant, Melchiorre Grandiben, Nicolò, was ducal secretary. In 1478 he traveled to Brescia, to request that Lorenzo Zane, Patriarch of Antioch and Bishop of Brescia, who had revealed political secrets to the Pope, appear before the council and explain himself.
Nicolò Grandiben, in his will of August 8, 1490, left to his son Girolamo (also ducal secretary), the house and contents, except for part of the well with columns and marble table, were endowed for the church of San Martino for construction of a baptistery in memory of the family. This baptistery was once found in a chapel of the former church of San Daniele in Venice (destroyed 1839).[1][2] In 1630, Diana Grandiben, daughter of Girolamo Gradinben, left the palace to her sister, Agnesina married to Marcantonio Negri. The Negri family owned the palace into at least the late 18th-century, since Francesco Negri, a prominent writer (1769-1827) was born here. It is now houses a rental property.[3]
References
- ↑ Alcuni palazzi: ed antichi edificii di Venezia, by Giuseppe Tassini, Filippi Editori, Tipografia M. Fontana, Venice (1879): pages 151-153.
- ↑ Tassini's book on Palazzi spells the name Gradiben, but most other textual citations, including Tassini's own Curiosita Veneziane, ovvero origini delle denominazioni stradali di Venezia, page 353-354, spell the name Grandiben or Grandinben, suggesting the Gradiben is a typographical error.
- ↑ Palazzo Gradinben Negri.