ABSTRACT
Around 1700 the range of Venetian palace architecture was enhanced by a small number of unfamiliar structural features. These were intended for the celebration of festivities and were characterised by decorative systems and architectural developments that broke with a well-established tradition. In 1695 the Zenobio family, assimilated into the patrician class, appointed Antonio Gaspari to renovate a Gothic palace in the ownership of Angelo Raffaele, which the family had bought in 1664 from the Morosini family. Gaspari is regarded as the most evidently baroque of Venetian architects to follow Roman rules and adapt them to Venetian habits, an aim which can clearly be read in the façade of Palazzo Zenobio. The palazzo's music or ball room is a setting whose claim to permanent significance involves isolating the palazzo from the city, preventing that natural extension of space ensured by the portego's terminal source of light.
