Measure and opulence

IN A 16TH-CENTURY PALAZZO IN VENICE, DIFFERENT EPOCHS, MATERIALS AND ARTISTIC SPHERES COEXIST IN AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION.

Matteo Corvino is an interior designer, set designer, director and organizer of events from Venice. With a background in acting, he is now known for organizing major events, also for luxury brands, all over the world. His latest effort is the multi-material installation done in collaboration with the workshops of San Patrignano, welcoming visitors to the 31st Biennale di Antiquariato in Florence, involving two colossal 1950s chandeliers by Carlo Scarpa for Venini. He also handled the restyling of the event, dating back to the last edition. His project in this Venetian residence began in that same period. And it has continued until today, a thread running through three decades of life and research. «The task was to practically reinvent, from scratch, the ancestral spirit of a 16th-century palazzo», Corvino says. «It had been badly refurbished in the 1980s, after a series of alterations and periods of abandon that ruined the original layout and erased all the decorative features. The external façade was intact, but inside all that remained were the terrazzo floors, the beams and some leftover stucco, three fireplaces in Rosso Verona marble and one painted ceiling from the 1700s». The first phase of work was in the portego, the central salon with an oblong form. A space from the local tradition with many social functions, usually extending from one facade to the other, perpendicular to the canal. «With local craftsmen specialized in stucco», Corvino continues, «I decided to create a series of Ionic pilasters, topping the segments with protruding frames and gray and pink marmorino. A decorative grid that restored symmetry and balance to the space». The language was early neoclassical, matching the tastes of the owner, a scholar and collector of furniture, paintings and objects from Directoire to Empire. «Between the pilasters there are rocaille appliques, which I had made in Murano and installed myself. Two Japanese screens from the Edo period, showing the imperial garden of Nara inhabited by deer, form a dialogue with gilded iron consoles and graphic chandeliers by Marc du Plantier enhanced by big crystals. There are also the essential Venetian visions of Roger de Montebello and works in glass by Massimo Micheluzzi and Louis ing, a Laura religious XVI silks de Santillana». allegory on the walls amidst In were the clear, suggested green luminous salon by the the skies. fresco pale «Elsewhere, colors on the of ceil- the as in the dining room, I have used restored antique fabrics by Fortuny, in contrast with the geometric table of mirrors and gilded bronze I have designed to go with the chairs by Marc du Plantier from the 1930s». The presence of Marc du Plantier, a French painter, architect and designer active for at least four decades until the 1970s and linked to the family of the client, can be seen in nearly all the rooms, mixing his rigorous abstraction with Venetian and French Rococo