5 Best Sights in Venice, Italy

One of the classic postcard sights of Venice, this exquisite Venetian Gothic palace was once literally a "Golden House," when its marble tracery and ornaments were embellished with gold. It was created by Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon between 1428 and 1430 for the patrician Marino Contarini, who had read about the Roman emperor Nero's golden house in Rome, the Domus Aurea, and wished to imitate it as a present to his wife. Her family owned the land and the Byzantine fondaco (palace-trading house) previously standing on it; you can still see the round Byzantine arches incorporated into the Gothic building's entry porch.

The last proprietor, Baron Giorgio Franchetti, left Ca' d'Oro to the city after having it carefully restored and furnished with antiquities, sculptures, and paintings that today make up the Galleria Franchetti. Besides Andrea Mantegna's St. Sebastian and other Venetian works, the Galleria Franchetti contains the type of fresco that once adorned the exteriors of Venetian buildings (commissioned by those who could not afford a marble facade). One such detached fresco displayed here was made by the young Titian for the facade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi near the Rialto.

Designed by Baldassare Longhena in the 17th century, this gigantic palace was completed nearly 100 years later by Giorgio Massari and became the last home of English poet Robert Browning (1812–89). Stand on the bridge by the Grand Canal entrance to spot the plaque with Browning's poetic excerpt, "Open my heart and you will see graved inside of it, Italy…," on the left side of the palace. The spectacular centerpiece is the eye-popping Grand Ballroom, which has hosted some of the grandest parties in the city's history, from its 18th-century heyday to the 1969 Bal Fantastica (a Save Venice charity event that attracted every notable of the day, from Elizabeth Taylor to Aristotle Onassis).

Today the upper floors of the Ca' Rezzonico are home to the especially delightful Museo del Settecento (Museum of Venice in the 1700s). Its main floor successfully retains the appearance of a magnificent Venetian palazzo, decorated with period furniture and tapestries in gilded salons, as well as Gianbattista Tiepolo ceiling frescoes and oil paintings. Upper floors contain a fine collection of paintings by 18th-century Venetian artists, including the famous Pulcinella frescoes by Tiepolo's son, Giandomenico, moved here from the Villa di Zianigo. There's even a restored apothecary, complete with powders and potions.

This museum of Venetian art and history contains an important sculpture collection by Antonio Canova and important paintings by Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio (Carpaccio's famous painting of the Venetian courtesans is here), and other major local painters. There are nine sumptuously decorated Imperial Rooms, where the Empress of Austria once stayed, and several rooms convey the city's proud naval history through highly descriptive paintings and numerous maritime objects, including ships' cannons and some surprisingly large iron mast-top navigation lights. 

Venice is the only major Italian city without an ancient past, yet it hosts a collection of ancient art that rivals those in Rome and Naples. The small museum housing this collection was first established in 1596, when the heirs of Cardinal Domenico Grimani—a noted humanist who had left his collection of original Greek (5th–1st centuries BC) and Roman antiquities to the Republic—inaugurated the historical artworks in Sansovino's then recently completed library in Piazza San Marco. You can see part of the collection, displayed just as Grimani (or at least his immediate heirs) had conceived it, in the vestibule of the Libreria Sansoviniana, which the museum shares with the Biblioteca Marciana. Highlights in the rest of the museum include the statue of Kore (420 BC); the 1st-century BC Ara Grimani, an elaborate Hellenistic altar stone with a bacchanalian scene; and a tiny but refined 1st-century BC crystal woman's head, which some say depicts Cleopatra. When you arrive, scan the QR code to get a handy museum guide on your phone.