Many many thanks to Eulalia, so incredibly clever at translating (and else)!
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I press against the railings as if they were the bars of a prison - but the prison is out here, not inside, the little courtyard is a serene place, like a convent cloister, a surreal peace reigns there. At the far end one can see the porch that opens out onto the Grand Canal, this too is barred by a heavy grating.
'Why is this gate here?'
'I remember they’ve put it here since the restaurant was opened, the rude customers were using the courtyard like a beer garden, it had become a mess. In the old days, before it opened, nobody dared make it dirty - the only solution was to prevent access . '
A rose is climbing beside the heavy walnut door, a calycanthus bush has just come into bloom despite the cold, a large bronze plaque with the family coat of arms proclaims the ownership. Someone is taking care of cleaning the place, it is not being neglected, which is a comfort to me.
'Let's go now, I want to go to Campo Sant'Agostin, it shouldn’t be far.'
'I don’t understand you, didn’t you want to take a ride on the Grand Canal?'
'We’ll do that, but just now I want to go there.'
'When a woman wants there is nothing she cannot get .'
I am also amazed that I’ve just said 'I want', whatever is happening to me?
Returning to Calle della Madonna at the Sotoportego della Madoneta, we reach Campo San Polo. Passing that square on our right we enter Calle de lo Scaleter, then we cross the bridge across the Rio de le Do Torri, and carry on to join the Rio Terrà Secondo (which is a street, Rio Terrà means an underground channel), then turning left we reach Campo Sant'Agostin.
'Where is the Palazzo Zane?'
'We must carry on.'
We continue straight towards the Campiello de la Chiesa that overlooks the Rio de Sant 'Agostin. After crossing the bridge on the left we enter Calle de Donà, in Campo San Stin, then turn right on Calle de l'Orio and cross Calle Zane. We make our way through some back alleys, perhaps of Calle Zane. We are behind the Palazzo Zane and the Casino Zane, at their entrance on Corte del Calderer. The main facades are on the Rio de Sant'Agostin where it continues into Rio San Zan Degola, and on the Rio San Giacomo de l'Orio at a right angle to it. From this point we can only see the back of the Palazzo Zane, and we cannot see anything of the garden of the Casino (small house), the entrances are shut off by large, solid gates.
'I want to see the facades of the two buildings.'
'You have to go there by boat. But would you care to explain why?’
'Not now! We'll look for a boat, and then you can tell to me about the two buildings. '
'You really do seem like a skittish little girl '
'I can afford to be.’
'Oh well! Let's go back to the Campiello de la Chiesa, there's a landing-stage.'
As soon as we arrive at the bridge we see a gondola, the gondolier rowing slowly, a whistle.
'Ghe xe speta?' (a polite but assertive Veneziano ‘are you waiting?’, I think)
We go down to get aboard.
'Ove ve deo menar?' (where do you go? I think)
'All around ...'
'Go ahead across there, towards the Palazzo Zane, and stop there.'
'So, architect, what can you tell me about the building?'
‘The building, from 1665, is the work of the famous architect Baldassarre Longhena, who was commissioned by the Zane family, one of the richest dynasties of the Venetian cinquecento. He was their proto, master builder, and he realized his project by designing a façade that brings to mind some of the formal solutions found in other civil buildings of the same architect. In particular, the arrangement of the façade recalls elements present in Ca 'Pesaro, another famous building by Longhena.
The white Istrian stone façade of Palazzo Zane highlights the presence of a ground floor dominated by two main floors. Apart from the surviving remains of two storeys of a pre-existing, minor building on the left-hand side, the façade is symmetrical, with two large, arched portals opening onto the canal in front. Above them, the two main floors are noteworthy especially for the two round-headed pentafore (groups of five tall, narrow arched windows, typical of Venetian architecture?), placed centrally, with a large mask on each keystone, an element that also characterises the two side windows, which differ from the central ones by the presence of balconies, those on the first floor projecting, on the second floor flush with the façade. The seventeenth-century garden at the back of the main building and served by a watergate is also important in the overall composition of the work. In the garden there is the Casino di Ca 'Zane, a structure dedicated to study and leisure, with a ballroom on the ground floor, and finely decorated and frescoed chambers - there are frescoes attributed to Sebastiano Ricci.’