The Fondaco dei Turchi (Venetian

Venetian language

Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...

: Fontego dei Turchi "The Turks' Inn") is a Veneto-Byzantine style

Venetian Gothic architecture

Venetian Gothic is a term given to an architectural style combining use of the Gothic lancet arch with Byzantine and Moorish architecture influences. The style originated in 14th century Venice with the confluence of Byzantine styles from Constantinople, Arab influences from Moorish Spain and early...

 palazzo

Palazzo

Palazzo, an Italian word meaning a large building , may refer to:-Buildings:*Palazzo, an Italian type of building**Palazzo style architecture, imitative of Italian palazzi...

 on the Grand Canal

Grand Canal of Venice

The Grand Canal is a canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city...

 of Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, northeast Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Early history

The palace was constructed in the first half of the 13th century by Giacomo Palmier, an exile from Pesaro

Pesaro

Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....

. The Venetian Republic purchased it in 1381 for Niccolò II d'Este

Niccolò II d'Este

Niccolò II d'Este was lord of Ferrara, Modena and Parma from 1361 until his death.He was the son of Obizzo III, who had ruled in Ferrara from 1317 to 1352...

, the Marquess of Ferrara. During its early history, the palazzo also served as a residence to many visiting dignitaries.

Turkish ghetto

From the early 17th century through to 1838, the fondaco served as a one-building-ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

 for Venice's Ottoman Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 population (thus "dei Turchi"). The fondaco then served as a combination home, warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

, and market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

 for the Turkish traders, as the Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Fondaco dei Tedeschi

The Fondaco dei Tedeschi is a historic building in Venice, northern Italy, situated on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge. It was the headquarters and restricted living quarters of the city's German merchants...

served as headquarters and restricted living quarters for German foreigners.

A number of restrictions were placed on the fondaco and its residents, including certain times one was able to enter and leave the ghetto, as well as on trading. Among other things, Venetian Turks imported wax

Wax

thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

, crude oil, and wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 to the city.

After the Venetian Republic was conquered and abolished by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797, the Turkish traders continued to live in the palazzo until 1838.

The building was in a very bad state by the mid-19th century, and was completely restored between 1860 and 1880. Some innovations have been added to the original Veneto-Byzantine design: for example, there were originally no towers on either side.

Today

From 1890 to 1923, the area was home the Museo Correr

Museo Correr

The Museo Correr is the civic museum of Venice, located in the Piazza San Marco, and is entered by the ceremonial stairway in the Ala Napoleonica at the western end of the Piazza opposite the church of San Marco at the other end...

 collection, which was moved to the Procuratie Nuove and Ala Napoleonica museums, at the Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco , is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as "the Piazza". All other urban spaces in the city are called "campi"...

, after 1923. Today, the area houses the Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia (Natural History Museum of Venice)

Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia

Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia is a museum of natural history housed in Fondaco dei Turchi, located on the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy. Its collection is mainly based around the nature of the Venetian lagoon that surrounds the city....

, with historical collections of flora and fauna, fossils, and an aquarium.