Ca' Zenobio degli Armeni, Baroque palace in Dorsoduro, Italy

Ca' Zenobio degli Armeni is a Baroque palace in the Dorsoduro district of Venice, facing the Rio Carmini canal. It has a series of decorated halls, a two-story ballroom, and a large garden that opens behind the main facade.

The palace was built in the late 17th century by architect Antonio Gaspari for the Venetian Zenobio family, replacing an older Gothic building on the same site. The land had previously belonged to the Morosini family before passing to the Zenobios.

The Zenobio name comes from the Veronese family that acquired the palace on 14 April 1664, not from Queen Zenobia; the queen appears only in the frescoed panels of the ballroom, presented as a supposed ancestor. From 1850 the building housed the Armenian Mekhitarist Moorat-Raphael College, a boarding school for Armenian students that closed in 1997 and survives as a non-profit association.

The palace is on Fondamenta del Soccorso in Dorsoduro and easy to reach on foot from nearby landmarks. During high water periods, known locally as acqua alta, the surrounding walkways can flood, so it is worth checking conditions before you go.

The ballroom's ceiling fresco by Louis Dorigny, Allegory of the Dawn, shows Aurora welcoming Apollo and his four-horse sun chariot, with two putti holding a torch and a bowl of dew. The panels around it depict scenes from the life of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, whom the Zenobio family claimed as an ancestor.