Venice is famous for its marvelous and diverse architecture: its Gothic style is marvelous. The building style of the palaces is also called the Venetian-Gothic architecture, and they are also influenced by the Byzantine and Arabic cultures. The style evolved in the 14th century in Venice. and during the Baroque era.
One example of the Venetian-Gothic style era is Palazzo Ca 'Dario, situated in Campiello Barbaro street. The building was commissioned to architect Pietro Lombardo in 1479 by Giovanni Dario (Secretary to the Venetian Senate) as a wedding gift for his daughter Marietta, betrothed to Vincenzo Barbaro, a wealthy spice merchant who owns the homonymous palace in Campo San Vio.
Giovanni Dario, a bourgeois of Dalmatian origins, carried out important tasks for the Republic of Venice: he was a merchant, notary of the ducal chancery, ducal secretary. He earned the title of Savior of the Homeland after, in 1479, he managed to negotiate a peace agreement with the Turks.
In 1494, at the death of Giovanni Dario, the palace was inherited by his daughter Marietta and then passed to Vincenzo Barbaro. The Barbaro family remained in possession of the palace until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Alessandro Barbaro (1764-1839), member of the last Council of the Ten of the Republic of Venice and courtly advisor of the Supreme Court of Verona, sold the palace to Arbit Abdoll, an Armenian merchant of precious stones
The architectural beauty of Ca 'Dario contrasts with its fame as a cursed palace, a nominee conferred by the tragic destiny that has united many of its owners. According to an alleged curse on the house, in fact, the owners of Ca 'Dario would be destined to end up on the streets or suffer a violent death.
Marietta, the daughter of Giovanni Dario, committed suicide following the financial collapse of her husband Vincenzo Barbaro, who was stabbed to death. Tragic also for their son Giacomo, who died in an ambush in Candia, on the island of Crete. These three deaths caused a sensation among the Venetians, who anagrammarono the inscription on the facade, transforming it from VRBIS GENIO IOANNES DARIVS to SVB RVINA INSIDIOSA GENERO (in Latin, "I create under insidious ruin")
The descendants of the Barbaro family inherited the palace until the early 19th century, when Alessandro Barbaro sold it to Arbit Abdoll, an Armenian merchant of precious stones, who declared bankruptcy shortly after taking possession of the house. Abdoll, in 1838, was forced to sell Ca 'Dario for 480 pounds to Englishman Rawdon Brown (1806-1883) who, in turn, resold it four years later for lack of money to restructure it. The building was then bought by a Hungarian count and then resold to a wealthy Irishman, Mr. Marshall, to be bought in 1896 by Countess Isabelle Gontran de la Baume-Pluvinel, who had it restored, and by her friend Augustine Bulteau.
He hosted the French poet Henri de Régnier, invited by the Countess de la Baume-Pluvinel, until a serious illness interrupted his stay in Venice. After the war Ca 'Dario was bought by Charles Briggs, an American billionaire. He was forced to flee from Venice because of the constant rumors about his homosexuality. He took refuge in Mexico, where his lover committed suicide.
House remained without an owner long time after Charles Briggs abandoned it. Then in 1964 tenor Mario Del Monaco (1915-1982) came forward among the possible buyers, but broke the negotiations. He was going to Venice to complete the details of the contract, but then he had serious car accident that forced a long rehabilitation and made him desist from purchase. A few years later Ca Dario was purchased by the Turin count Filippo Giordano delle Lanze. He didn't fare better than his predecessors, for he was killed in the palace in 1970 by a Croatian sailor named Raul Blasich. Ironically he had had a relationship with this particular sailor. Blasich escaped to London, where in turn HE was assassinated.
The palace was bought by Christopher "Kit" Lambert (1935-1981), manager of the rock band The Who. He fell in love with its romantic and melancholy appearance. In this environment, his dependence on drugs worsened to such extent that he had to undermine his relationship with the band in 1974. While claiming he did not believe the curse, Lambert had confined to some friends that he slept in gondoliers kiosk in the nearby Hotel Gritti to "escape the ghost that hunted him in the palace."
In 1978, three years before his death, Kit Lambert sold the Palacee to a Venetian businessman, Fabrizio Ferrari, who moved there with his sister Nicoletta. Nicoletta died in a strange road accident without witnesses. Fabrizio Ferrari, after short time, was involved in a financial crack and was also arrested on charges of beating a model.
In the end of 1980s the building was bought by the financer Raul Gardini, who wanted to give it to his daughter. Gardini, after series of economic reverses and the involvement in the scandal of tangentopoli a.k.a Mani Pulite (The corrupt Italian political system that came to an end in the early 1990s), committed suicide in 1993 in circumstances never fully clarified.
After the death of Gardini no one wanted to buy Ca 'Dario, to the point that the first brokerage company that had received the mandate for sale surrendered and put back the job. In the late nineties, director and actor Woody Allen (1935-) seemed intent on buying the building but desisted. In 2002, a week after having rented Ca 'Dario for a holiday in Venice, bassist John Entwistle (1944-2002) died of a heart attack. In 2006 the property passed to an American company representing an unknown buyer and is currently undergoing restoration
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