Casa di Tiziano ai Biri – Virtual Tour 360°

At a glance

What it is

The house Titian rented from 1531 until his death

Landlord

The nobleman Leonardo Molin; the house had been built in 1527 by Alvise Polani

Titian here

1531 – 27 August 1576

Today

The building survives at Campo del Tiziano, Cannaregio 5182

Inside

Mario Berta Battiloro, the last gold-beater’s workshop in Venice, visitable by appointment

Overview

Biri Grande was then the northern edge of the city, where the houses stopped and the lagoon began. Titian took a house here in 1531, renting it from the nobleman Leonardo Molin: a building put up four years earlier by Alvise Polani, with a piece of empty ground beside it that the painter turned into a garden.

He stayed for forty-five years. He was still living here when he died on 27 August 1576, of fever, during an epidemic of plague, and without leaving a will.

History

Before Biri the family lived in the parish of San Polo, near the Frari. Titian had married Cecilia, daughter of a barber of Perarolo di Cadore, in November 1525, when she was already ill and the marriage served to legitimise their two sons, Pomponio and Orazio. She died in the summer of 1530, and it was after her death that Titian moved north to Biri. A third child, Lavinia, is often called her daughter; the scholarship disputes it, since Lavinia married in 1555, and considers a second marriage more likely.

The best-documented evening in this garden is the supper of the feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1540, described by Francesco Priscianese in a letter published with his Latin grammar: the guests were Jacopo Sansovino, Pietro Aretino and Jacopo Nardi, the tables were laid outdoors, and gondolas crossed the water in the dusk while the company waited for the sun to go down.

One of the works he painted for the city did not outlive him by as long as the house has. The Martyrdom of Saint Peter Martyr, made for the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, was destroyed in the fire that broke out there on the night of 16 August 1867; the basilica records that the blaze consumed the Tintoretto ceiling of the Rosary chapel, and the painting was among the works that had been brought into that chapel for restoration.

The view that made the garden worth having is gone. Until the Fondamente Nove were built in 1589 the ground opened directly onto the lagoon, towards Murano and the mainland beyond.

What you see

The building still stands, on the campo that now carries the painter’s name. It is not a museum and there is no monumental entrance: what is here is an ordinary Venetian house that happens to be the one in which Titian worked for the second half of his life.

Part of it is occupied by Mario Berta Battiloro, the last workshop in Venice where gold is still beaten into leaf by hand, listed among the city’s recognised artisan trades. It can be visited by appointment, and it is the only way to get inside.

Practical information

• Address: Campo del Tiziano, Cannaregio 5182, 30121 Venezia
• The house is private and is not a museum
• Mario Berta Battiloro: visits by appointment, Monday to Friday 09:30–12:00 and 14:00–15:00, about forty minutes
• Nothing marks the house from the campo: no commemorative plaque is documented

Sources

• Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, entry on Tiziano Vecellio — the marriage of November 1525, Cecilia’s death in the summer of 1530, the doubts over Lavinia’s parentage, and the death of 27 August 1576
• Francesco Priscianese, letter describing the supper of 15 August 1540 in Titian’s garden at Biri
• Archival record naming Cecilia as daughter of a barber of Perarolo di Cadore
• Venezia Unica and the Chamber of Commerce artisan register, for Mario Berta Battiloro