In the Gothic palace Ca' Centanni, in San Polo, is located the house when, the 25th of February 1707, the famous comedy writer Carlo Goldoni was born. The building is a little museum of Goldoni, with a center for theatre studies, a library with a vast documentation of its work and the famous puppets little theatre from Ca’ Grimani ai Servi and already included in the Ca’ Rezzonico’s collections.
The archive and the library gather texts and theatrical studies with original manuscripts (more than 30.000 works). Ca’ Centani, or Centanni, better known as “Carlo Goldoni’s House”, built in the 15th century, is a typical Gothic palace, but still presenting the layout and typical elements of civil Venetian architecture between the end of the 14th and the early 15th century in spite of its several renovations. Particularly interesting is the triptych façade with rich mullioned windows with four lights, the entrance from calle dei Nomboli on the courtyard with the suggestive open stairway supported upon progressively shrinking pointed arches, with a handrail in Istrian stone and simple small cylindrical columns, a little lion and a pine-cone.
Owned by the Rizzi family, the palace was rented to the Zentani or Centani family in the XVI century and it then hosted a thriving artistic and literary Academy. Around the end of the 17th century Carlo Goldoni’s paternal grandfather, Carlo Alessandro, a solicitor with origins in Modena, established himself there. The Goldoni family remained in this house, where Carlo was born on 25 February 1707, until 1719.
In 1914 Aldo Ravà, a noted scholar of 18th century Venice – together with Count Piero Foscari and Commendatore Antonio Pellegrini – bought the palazzo from its owner, Contessa Ida Manassero Camozzo, with the idea of using it to house a museum dedicated to the great playwright and to the history of Italian theatre. The project came to nothing because of the outbreak of war, and then in 1931, Ca’ Centani was bequeathed to the Venice Municipality so it might be restored and become a Goldoni Museum and a center for theatre studies. The war had slow down the restoration works that ended only in 1953. In June 1953 the House was open to public, housing a little Museum of Goldoni and some Venetian theatrical antiques, but focusing above all on the study center and on the constant increase of its library and archive.
Useful information:
Address: San Polo 2794 - 30125 Venezia
Opening times: April 1st - October 31st from 10 am to 5 pm (ticket office 10 am - 4.30 pm)
November 1st - March 31st from 10 am to 4 pm (ticket office 10 am - 3.30 pm)
Closed on Dic. 25th, Jan. 1st, May 1st
Price:
Full price ticket € 5.00
Reduced ticket: € 3.50 Children aged from 6 to 14; students aged from 15 to 25; coordinators (max. 2) for groups of children or students (min. 10); citizens over 65; staff of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo (MiBACT); holders of the Venice Rolling Card; holders of ISIC – International Student Identity Card.
Free entrance: Venetian citizens and residents; children aged from 0 to 5; disabled people with helper; authorized guides and interpreters accompanying groups or individual visitors; for groups of at least 15 people, 1 free entrance (only with prior booking); accompanying teachers of school groups (up to 2 teachers per group); ICOM members; Servizio Civile volunteers; MUVE ordinary partners; MUVE Friend Card holders, holders of “The Cultivist” card (plus three guests); holders of Art Pass Venice Foundation; members of “Amici dei Musei e Monumenti Veneziani”.
Contacts:
Phone: +39 041 2759325
Fax: +39 041 2440081
E-mail: segreteria.casagoldoni@fmcvenezia.it
Website: www.carlogoldoni.visitmuve.it
How to get there: ferry boat stop "San Tomà"
