The three buildings of the Hotel Danieli in Venice side by side on the Riva, from the Gothic palace to the twentieth-century wing — The three buildings of the Danieli on the Riva degli Schiavoni: the Gothic palace on the left, the nineteenth-century house in the middle, the 1948 wing beyond. Photo: Stefano Vigolo.

Castello, Venice · fourteenth-century palace · hotel since 1822 · contested wing of 1948

The Three Palaces of the Danieli, and the One Venice Fought Over

A Gothic palace of the Dandolo family, a house next door, and a wing added in 1948 on ground where the city had forbidden building above one storey since 1172.

At a glance

The Danieli is three buildings pretending to be one hotel, and they are easy to tell apart from the quay. On the left, the red Gothic front of Palazzo Dandolo, built for the family in the fourteenth century and turned into a hotel in 1822. In the middle, a plainer nineteenth-century block carrying the name DANIELI. On the right, a wing of 1948 in travertine and concrete, marked DANIELI EXCELSIOR, which Venice argued about before it was built and has argued about since.

Key facts

Palazzo Dandolo: built for the Dandolo family in the fourteenth century
Became a hotel: 1822, when Giuseppe Dal Niel — known as Danieli — bought the palace and converted it
Interiors: restored in neo-Gothic taste to designs by Tranquillo Orsi
The new wing: 1948, by Virgilio Vallot (1901–1982), on the site of buildings demolished between Palazzo Dandolo and the Palazzo delle Prigioni
Why it was contested: the doge Vitale II Michiel was killed on that spot, and since 1172 no building above a single storey had been permitted there
GPS: 45.43397, 12.34209 · Open in Google Maps

History

Palazzo Dandolo went up in the fourteenth century for one of the great Venetian families, on the stretch of quay that runs east from the Doge’s Palace. For four hundred years it was a private house. In 1822 it was bought by Giuseppe Dal Niel, whose nickname gave the hotel its name, and converted — one of the first of the Venetian palaces to make the change from residence to hotel, decades before the Riva filled up with them. Tranquillo Orsi supplied the interiors, in the neo-Gothic manner that the nineteenth century thought appropriate to a Gothic shell.

The third building is the one with a story. In 1948 the hotel demolished what stood between Palazzo Dandolo and the Palazzo delle Prigioni and put up a new wing to a design by Virgilio Vallot. The objection was not only aesthetic. That piece of ground carried a prohibition dating from 1172: the doge Vitale II Michiel had been killed there, and in punishment the city forbade any building on the site above a single storey. The rule had held, in effect, for nearly eight centuries. The Danieli Excelsior broke it.

The wing remains one of the most debated interventions on the Venetian waterfront. It is also, unlike most of the arguments about modern building in Venice, a case where the objection was written down eight hundred years in advance.

What you see

Read the three fronts left to right and they are a compressed history of Venetian taste. Palazzo Dandolo is red-plastered with white stone tracery, pointed windows in groups, and slender pinnacles along the roofline — Gothic, and restored to look more Gothic than it was. The middle building is calm and repetitive, green shutters on cream plaster, with the word DANIELI in faded raised letters across the upper wall.

The 1948 wing is the one that changes the rhythm. Its wall is dressed in pale stone, laid in wide horizontal courses; the upper floors carry continuous balconies behind square piers, so the elevation reads as a grid rather than as a row of windows; and DANIELI EXCELSIOR is cut across it in tall letters. It is not a bad building. It is a building that says the twentieth century out loud, on a quay where nothing else does, next to a palace that predates the rule it broke.

Practical information

A working hotel: the three fronts are seen from the public quay, free, at any hour
The interior courtyard of Palazzo Dandolo is accessible to guests and to the hotel’s bar and restaurant
The best view of all three together is from the bridge to the east, towards San Zaccaria
Fifteen minutes from outside

Getting there

On the Riva degli Schiavoni, two minutes’ walk east of the Doge’s Palace. The nearest vaporetto stop is San Zaccaria.

Nearby

The Palazzo delle Prigioni Nuove, immediately west
The Londra Palace and the Hotel Savoia & Jolanda, two minutes east
The Doge’s Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, three minutes west

Sources

Wikipedia (Italian), Palazzo Dandolo / Hotel Danieli: the fourteenth-century construction for the Dandolo family, the purchase and conversion by Giuseppe Dal Niel in 1822, the neo-Gothic interiors by Tranquillo Orsi, the 1948 Danieli Excelsior wing by Virgilio Vallot on the site cleared between Palazzo Dandolo and the Palazzo delle Prigioni, and the controversy arising from the killing of the doge Vitale II Michiel and the prohibition, in force since 1172, on building above one storey on that ground
Coordinates from the position supplied by the photographer and cross-checked against OpenStreetMap

Photo gallery

The 1948 Danieli Excelsior wing on the Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice, with its name in raised letters — The 1948 wing, with DANIELI EXCELSIOR cut across the stone. Photo: Stefano Vigolo

The Danieli Excelsior wing in Venice, with the campanile of San Marco behind and Palazzo Dandolo on the right — The wing between the campanile of San Marco and the Gothic front of Palazzo Dandolo. Photo: Stefano Vigolo

Palazzo Dandolo, the Gothic core of the Hotel Danieli, seen along the Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice — Palazzo Dandolo along the quay, with the Doge’s Palace beyond. Photo: Stefano Vigolo

Photographs contributed by a Cultural Heritage Online member.

Find it on the map

See this place and what’s around it →

Google Maps See the location on a full map → Street View Walk around the place virtually → OpenStreetMap Free community cartography →

Record researched and written by Carla Szathvary for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.

📷 Become a Cultural Heritage Online photographer

Share your photos of places: they stay published under your name as the author. The more they're seen, the more you get noticed — and soon a contest will reward the most appreciated photos.

Is this page about you?

This page is read by travellers and heritage enthusiasts who find it on Google. Tell us how you are connected to this place and we will take it from there.