Ca' Foscari Historical Timeline

Origins

The site had previously held a building known as the House with the Two Towers, which the Republic bought in 1429 and later reclaimed after a political betrayal in 1447. In 1453, the Republic sold the property at auction to Doge Francesco Foscari, who demolished the existing structure and built an entirely new palace, moving its footprint forward to sit directly on the Grand Canal.

Turning points

Foscari's grand new residence was meant to project the authority of a doge who had overseen decades of Venetian military expansion. It did not work out as he hoped: in 1457, after a long and increasingly bitter dispute with the Council of Ten, Foscari was forced to abdicate. He retired to the palace he had just built and died there shortly afterward.

Influential people

The palace later hosted royalty -- King Henry III of France stayed there in 1574 -- before a rougher chapter in the 19th century, when it served as barracks during the 1848 Risorgimento uprising and as shelter during the Austrian bombardment of Venice in 1849. The City of Venice purchased the building in 1845 and began restoring it.

Cultural evolution

Since 1868, Ca' Foscari has served as the seat of what is now Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and in the 20th century the architect Carlo Scarpa redesigned one of its interior halls, the Aula Baratto, blending his own modernist sensibility into the historic shell.

Present-day significance

In 2013, Ca' Foscari became the oldest building in the world to receive LEED sustainability certification -- a striking pairing of 15th-century Gothic architecture with 21st-century environmental standards, achieved without altering the historic facade itself.