Caffè Florian – Virtual Tour 360°

At a glance

Opened

29 December 1720, by Floriano Francesconi

Original sign

Alla Venezia Trionfante

Interiors

Remade from 1858 by Lodovico Cadorin (1824–1892)

Recognition

Regione Veneto, regional register of historic places of commerce, start of activity 1720

Where

Piazza San Marco 56–59, under the Procuratie Nuove

Open

Every day, 09:00–23:00

Overview

Floriano Francesconi opened his coffee house in the square two days before the end of 1720, under a sign that read Alla Venezia Trionfante. Custom soon replaced the sign with the man: people said they were going da Florian, and the name stuck.

The claim worth stating precisely is this. Florian is the oldest café in Italy — the Antico Caffè Greco in Rome, its nearest rival, is of 1760 — and it is among the oldest in the world still operating in the rooms where it began. Older houses exist: the Procope in Paris of 1686, the Oxford coffee houses of the 1650s. But their trade was interrupted, or they moved. Florian has not.

History

The rooms visitors see are not those of 1720. In 1858 new owners commissioned Lodovico Cadorin, of the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, to remake the interiors, and the work continued for decades. The Sala del Senato was painted by Giacomo Casa; the Sala Cinese and the Sala Orientale by Antonio Pascuti; the Sala delle Stagioni, also called the Sala degli Specchi, by Cesare Rota in 1872; the Sala degli Uomini Illustri by Giulio Carlini in 1891, with medallion portraits of ten Venetians — Goldoni, Marco Polo, Titian, Morosini, Orseolo, Palladio, Marcello, Sarpi, Vettor Pisani, Dandolo. The Sala Liberty came with the new century.

The café belongs to the literary and political life of the city from the eighteenth century onward, and Goldoni gave the type its comedy with La bottega del caffè in 1750. The long lists of famous patrons that circulate — Casanova, Byron, Dickens, Proust — are the house’s own tradition rather than documented visits, and are repeated here as such.

By a persistent Venetian tradition, the Venice Biennale was conceived at a table in the Sala del Senato. What is documented is the resolution of the city administration of 19 April 1893, under mayor Riccardo Selvatico, proposing a biennial national art exhibition; the first edition opened in 1895. The Biennale’s own history does not mention the café.

What you see

A sequence of small, densely decorated rooms rather than a single hall: mirrors, stucco, painted panels and banquettes, each room with its own scheme. In good weather the tables come out under the arcade of the Procuratie Nuove, facing the basilica.

From April to October an orchestra plays outside, the survival of the nineteenth-century café-concert. A per-person surcharge applies when the music is playing; it is not published on the official site, so ask before sitting down.

Practical information

• Address: Piazza San Marco 57, 30124 Venezia
• Open: every day, 09:00–23:00
• Music surcharge: applies per person when the orchestra plays, April to October — check the amount on the day
• Telephone: +39 041 520 5641

Nearby

• Correr Museum — Museum, 83 m away
• Giustiniani Palace, Venice Biennale Foundation — Cultural centre, 155 m away
• Palazzo Ducale — Palace, about 200 m away

Sources

• Regione Veneto, Elenco regionale dei luoghi storici del commercio (L.R. 50/2012, art. 11), edition of 7 May 2026 — entry Caffè Florian, Piazza San Marco 56–59, start of activity 1720
• Caffè Florian, official history and halls pages — caffeflorian.com
• La Biennale di Venezia, official history (the 1893 municipal resolution and the first edition of 1895)