Ca' Foscari Site Features

The double octafore

Two eight-light windows stacked one above the other, with the upper tracery pierced into quatrefoils. Seen from the far bank at the bend, they line up as a single vertical panel of stone lace across the middle of the facade.

The Aula Baratto

Carlo Scarpa's hall, facing the Grand Canal, with his characteristic layering of wood, glass and light against the older fabric. It is a lecture room in daily use, and seeing it depends on the university not needing it that morning.

A doge's last address

Francesco Foscari built the palace to display the authority of a thirty-four-year reign, was forced to abdicate in 1457, and died here within days. The building outlasted the point it was made to prove.

The oldest LEED building in the world

Ca' Foscari was certified in 2013 -- a 15th-century Gothic palace meeting 21st-century environmental standards, achieved through what was done behind the facade rather than to it.