Fondaco dei Tedeschi Site Features

The lost frescoes

After the 1505 fire the Republic had the entire exterior frescoed by Giorgione, with Titian -- then in his twenties -- on the Merceria flank. Almost nothing survived: salt air stripped the pigment within about two centuries. The surviving fragments, including Giorgione's Nuda, are at the Ca' d'Oro, so the building's most celebrated decoration must now be seen in another building entirely.

The courtyard

The plan is a hollow square: four storeys of arcaded galleries around a central court that was the working heart of the fondaco, where goods were unloaded, weighed and taxed under supervision. OMA's 2016 work roofed it and threaded escalators through it, so the space now reads as an atrium -- but the arcade rhythm is original.

What a fondaco was

The word comes from the Arabic funduq, a merchants' inn, and describes an arrangement rather than a style: foreign traders were required to live, store and sell within one supervised building, with a curfew. It was as much customs post as warehouse, and the Germans were the largest such community in Venice.