Palazzo Vendramin Calergi Site Features

Wagner's rooms

The composer rented the piano nobile from September 1882 and died in these rooms on 13 February 1883. The apartments now hold the Wagner Museum, built around the Josef Lienhart Collection of letters, scores and memorabilia -- visitable on Saturday mornings by appointment, which makes it one of the least-seen museums in Venice.

The motto on the frieze

Non nobis Domine non nobis, cut across the front of one of the most expensive private houses of its century. It is worth finding from a boat: at that distance the lettering is legible and the irony is unavoidable.

A casino in a Codussi palace

The Casino di Venezia has wintered here since 1959, descended from the Ridotto of 1638, generally reckoned the oldest public gambling house in the world. The Renaissance rooms are the gaming rooms.

The garden

A walled garden behind the palace, a genuine rarity on the Grand Canal, where ground was too valuable to leave unbuilt.