It was built by the Pesaro family in the fifteenth century in Venetian Gothic style.

[2] From 1902 it was the home of Mariano Fortuny and his wife Henriette Negrin.

[2][4][a] The San Beneto branch of the family died out towards the end of the seventeenth century, and from about 1720 the palace was let to various tenants, among them a printer – the Tipografia Albrizzi – and two musical associations, first the Accademia degli Orfei from 1786 and then, from 1835, the Società Apollinea.

By the time Mariano Fortuny established his first Venetian studio there, in the last years of the century, there were some 350 tenants.

[3]: 49  In 1907, together with his future wife Henriette Negrin, he established a small workshop; within a few years, two floors of the palace were devoted to the printing of silk and velvet clothing and textiles.