The Ca' da Mosto is a thirteenth-century palace in Venice, northern Italy, the oldest building on the Grand Canal. It is in the Veneto-Byzantine style, with high narrow arches and distinctive capitals.
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The features of the palace show its beginnings as a casa-fondaco, the home and workplace of its original merchant owner. A second floor was added at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a third in the nineteenth.
The palace takes its name from the Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto, who was born in the palace in 1432. It stayed in the Da Mosto family until 1603, when Chiara da Mosto left her entire estate to a remote nephew rather than her Da Mosto relatives, with whom she had fallen out.
Between the 16th and the 18th centuries the Ca' da Mosto housed the well-known Albergo Leon Bianco (the White Lion Hotel). In 1769 and 1775 the Holy Roman Emperor and son of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, lived here during his stay in Venice.
The Ca' da Mosto currently sits empty, with the high waters of the canal having breached its basement. According to an interview in The Lady, the palace is the building Francesco da Mosto, a descendant of its eponymous former owners, would most like to restore.[1]