Palazzo Balbi was built by Nicolò Balbi. Before he made his riches he lived in rented accommodation. One month when he had forgotten to pay the landlord could not help himself and embarrassed the young man him in public, a terrible insult to a noble. Balbi immediately paid up and moved out. He then purchased a boat and moored it outside of the home of his ex landlord blocking the light and the view of the canal.

Today, Palazzo Balbo is home to the Regione Veneto and it was from here Napoleon observed a regatta in his honour in 1807.

Palazzo Contarini delle Figure takes its name from a statue above its canal side entrance. It is a figuration of a man and woman both ripping their hair out. The man was a compulsive gambler and the work immortalizes the moment when both husband and wife realised he had lost the last thing he was able to bet on, his wife.

Also note that the pediment spanning the central windows of the 'piano nobile' is a very unusual feature in Venetian palaces.

Palazzo Grimani faces, on the opposite bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Papadopoli of the Tiepolo family.

The two became historically linked when the son of the Grimani, and future father of the Doge Grimani, asked for the hand in marriage of the daughter of the Tiepolo. His approach was rebuffed as the young Grimani had not yet constructed his own palace on the Grand Canal, so Palazzo Grimani was built. Such was his pride he ordered the palace to have ‘windows bigger than the doors of the Tiepolo’

www.palazzogrimani.org