Palazzo Molin del Cuoridoro, a spectacular 32,000-square-foot gothic villa where Mozart stayed when visiting Venice in 1771, has been turned into 18 appropriately sumptuous apartments. Until the 1990s, the exact house where Mozart stayed in was unknown; now some scholars believe that the composer's opera "Don Giovanni" was inspired by the palazzo's owner, an infamous Venetian aristocrat.
Mozart chose the house for its proximity to the historic opera house, now called La Fenice, which is near Venice's gorgeous but overrun central square, Piazza San Marco. At the time, the palazzo was called Ca' Falletti, after its one-time owner Count Francesco Falletti Castelman, who "was part of the decaying aristocracy of the Venetian republic and had been condemned to death in 1752 for sexual license and blasphemy," according to the listing site.
Castelman was still notorious in Venice at the time Mozart stayed there with his father, two decades later. Indeed, there do seem to be similarities between the licentious real-life Count and Mozart's fictional master seducer, Don Giovanni. The palazzo is at the meeting point of two canals, and has two water gates, which would have allowed the libertine Count to sneak around under the cover of night.
For the moment, however, these historic apartments with contemporary flourishes seem worth staying out of prison for. The apartments, which all have double-height ceilings, arched windows, and balconies overlooking a canal or a courtyard, are priced from €870K to €2.6M ($1.04M to $3.1M).
Photos of Palazzo Molin del Cuoridoro, below:
· Palazzo Molin, Venice [official site]
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