Palazzo Clary

The Palazzo Clary (Clary Palace) is a Late Renaissance Venetian palace facing the Giudecca Canal alongside the fondamenta Zattere by the ponte longo in Venice's Dorsoduro.

Originally built in the late 17th century, during the vogue of the late Venetian Renaissance revival architecture, the palazzo underwent later remodelling in the 19th century but has kept its original style unchanged.

It follows the Renaissance pattern of design on four floors: a hallway floor giving access to the palace from the fondamenta is surmounted by two Piano nobiles and a fourth story above them: The U-shaped back facade is made of two paralleled wings surrounding a large garden ending onto the back canal with a richly decorated crenated wall with arched gates to the Chiesa degli Ognissanti.

Originally built in the 17th century for a Venetian noble family, the palace passed through different ownership, known as Palazzo Priuli-Bon, and was bought around 1855 by the Bohemian prince Edmund von Clary und Aldringen, as a residence for his father-in-law Count Karl Ludwig von Ficquelmont, a central figure of Austrian diplomacy and politics.

After World War II, while still the property of the princes Clary-und-Aldringen, part of the palace was rented to France to serve as the country's consulate general in Venice until it was moved to Trieste in the late 1990s.