Ca' da Mosto Site Features

The 13th-century arcade

The ground-floor water arcade and the round-arched windows of the first floor above it are the oldest fabric on the building and among the oldest surviving domestic architecture on the Grand Canal. The stilted arches and the patere -- carved marble roundels of animals and crosses set into the wall between them -- are Veneto-Byzantine work reused and rearranged over later rebuildings.

The Leon Bianco

From the 17th century the palace ran as an inn, the White Lion, and became the most prominent in Venice. Emperor Joseph II stayed here under an assumed name in 1769, and the 1782 visit of the sons of Tsar Paul, travelling as the "Counts of the North", was one of the social events of the decade.

Alvise Cadamosto

The navigator born in this house took his name from it -- Cadamosto is simply Ca' da Mosto contracted. Sailing for Portugal between 1455 and 1456 he reached the Gambia and sighted the Cape Verde islands, and his written account is among the earliest first-hand European descriptions of the West African coast.