.Palazzo Fortuny.

Gothic palace once owned by Mariano Fortuny, open for exhibitions 

Palazzo Fortuny is a Gothic palazzo in the San Marco district of Venice. It's a fifteenth-century building, once the property of the Pesaro family, and also known as Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei. It's an imposing building and largely unrestored, its shabbiness giving it a real sense of history. At the beginning of the twentieth century it belonged to Spanish fashion designer Mariano Fortuny, also a photographer, artst and the inventor of a successful method for printing luxurious fabrics.Although it comes under the umbrella of the Venice Civic Museums, Palazzo Fortuny does not currently have permanent displays, and is open only when a special exhibition is taking place. The two piano nobile floors, with lofty reception rooms, Gothic windows and rooftop views are lovely spaces, decorated with a clutter of Fortuny fabrics, paintings and objets d'art as well as temporary exhibits. You can see the environment in which Fortuny worked as well as admiring the evocative state of the building itself, with its faded fragments of fresco, carved beams, external staircase, loggia and small courtyard.