The palaces of Venice

In a nutshell: how a city on mud built the most elegant palaces in Europe - and why they float. Start with the Doge's Palace, then cross to Dorsoduro's palazzi for the Grand Canal front line.

Venetian builders faced a problem unique in Europe: the ground itself was unstable. Everything had to be light, elastic and engineered to flex with the mud. The result was a domestic architecture of extraordinary elegance - palaces that float, quite literally, on forests of submerged timber.

The lagoon's first inhabitants were fishermen living in wooden houses raised on piles - palafitte - much like the stilt settlements still visible along the canal between Pellestrina and Chioggia. When the city turned to masonry, the builders consolidated the ground by driving long poles of oak or larch into the most solid layer beneath the mud, a stratum of compacted clay called caranto. Sealed off from air, the wood does not rot: it mineralises, growing harder with time. Over the piles the builders laid a platform of planks, then foundations of Istrian stone, then the brick walls - a recipe that has kept the palaces standing for half a millennium.

A Venetian palace is a house-fondaco, at once the patrician's residence and his place of business, and its plan reflects that double life. Sumptuary laws and the sheer difficulty of building on water kept most palaces to three floors. Every palace has two entrances: the riva on the water, through which goods arrived, and a land door opening onto a court with a well at its centre. On the ground floor the entrance hall, the androne, is flanked by the mezzanine - the merchant's offices, squeezed into the half-height wings. The piano nobile above holds the grand salone and the family rooms, while the attic housed the servants and the staff of the trading enterprise.

• ✦Sottoportici - passageways cut through the ground floors of buildings so that calli and narrow fondamenta could run beneath the houses
• ✦Altane - wooden roof terraces that win back light and sun for apartments hemmed in by neighbours
• ✦Barbacani - wooden or stone corbels supporting overhanging upper floors, letting buildings grow while keeping the streets wide

Because the lagoon made fortifications unnecessary, the nobles built for pleasure rather than defence. Their palazzi were fitted with loading docks and warehouses at water level and chandeliered ballrooms above - the Republic even paved the streets and, a European first, required them to be lit at night.

Venetian Gothic

The signature look of the Grand Canal is Venetian Gothic - ornate pointed arches, quatrefoil windows and stone lacework, with Byzantine and Islamic touches woven in, the fruit of centuries of Eastern trade. The Ca' d'Oro, whose nickname means 'House of Gold', is its quintessential example, and the same vocabulary decorates churches and scuole across the city.

The Doge's Palace

The seat of the government and the residence of the ruling duke, the Doge's Palace was for four centuries the most powerful site in Europe - the political, judicial and ceremonial heart of the Republic, with the doge's family quarters sitting directly above the rooms where the state was run. Its state rooms are crowded with great canvases by Veronese and Tintoretto, and the one-way route finishes over the famous Bridge of Sighs and into the prison cells where Casanova once plotted his escape. The lace-like Gothic facade, its lower arcade and upper loggia seeming to float, remains the defining image of Venetian power.

The €30 ticket also covers the Museo Correr across the square (€15 for youth and seniors; add €1 for an online timed reservation). Hours run Sunday to Thursday 8:30–21:00, Friday and Saturday until 23:00, and until 19:00 from November to March; last entry is one hour before closing. To dodge the queue, buy ahead online or pick up your ticket at the quiet Correr Museum, and join the turnstile lane for ticket holders. Info: +39 041 271 5911, vaporetto stops San Marco and San Zaccaria.

Ca' Rezzonico

In Dorsoduro, on the Grand Canal, this is the museum of eighteenth-century Venice: the most vivid portrait anywhere of how the rich and famous lived in the 1700s. Wander beneath Tiepolo's ceilings among period furnishings, canal-view rooms and canvases by Guardi and Canaletto, plus Longhi's scenes of domestic life. Admission €10 (€1 extra to reserve online); open Wednesday to Monday 10:00–18:00, until 17:00 from November to March, closed Tuesdays year-round; a €4 audioguide and a café overlooking the canal; vaporetto: Ca' Rezzonico; +39 041 241 0100.

Ca' d'Oro

The 'House of Gold' is Venetian Gothic at its most ornate - the facade a confection of Byzantine and Islamic accents - with its leafy courtyard and a fine view over the canal from the loggia. Inside, the Galleria Franchetti holds a compact collection of Renaissance masterpieces, including works by Ghirlandaio, Signorelli and Mantegna. Admission €6; open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–19:00, closed Mondays; vaporetto: Ca' d'Oro; +39 041 520 0345.

Ca' Pesaro

In the Santa Croce quarter, this seventeenth-century canalside palazzo holds the city's museum of modern art - arguably Venice's best modern collection after the Guggenheim. The galleries cover the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, strongest on Italian artists, with standouts including Klimt's Judith II, Kandinsky's White Zig Zags and Chagall's Rabbi #2, plus sculpture by Rodin, Medardo Rosso and Adolfo Wildt. Admission €14; open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, until 17:00 from November to March, closed Mondays; a two-minute walk from the San Stae vaporetto stop; +39 041 721 127.

Palazzo Mocenigo

This fine seventeenth-century mansion in Santa Croce now houses the Costume Museum: a dozen rooms of period clothing and accessories, collections of perfumes and spices to sample, and a film on the history of scent in Venice. The Mocenigo family produced seven doges, and the ceilings, painted around 1790, celebrate their triumphs; Murano glass chandeliers hang in place. Admission €8; open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, until 17:00 from November to March, closed Mondays; near the San Stae stop; +39 041 721 798.

Several more palazzi line the Grand Canal as museums and galleries. Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana share a collection of contemporary art between two spectacular venues. The former Fondaco dei Tedeschi, once the trading post of the German merchants and for a time Venice's principal post office, is now a luxury mall whose rooftop terrace - free, but with 15-minute slots for 70 people, bookable online - offers a stunning outlook over the canal's great bend. And the Peggy Guggenheim Collection lives in the collector's former residence on the Grand Canal, where the art is displayed much as she kept it.