Palazzetto Pisani, Palace in San Marco, Venice, Italy

Palazzetto Pisani is a palace in Venice's San Marco district, facing the Grand Canal between the Rio del Santissimo and Palazzo Benzon Foscolo. Its four-level facade, with a piano nobile between two mezzanines, shows pairs of bifore windows, a coat of arms, stone string courses and a decorative portal; the entrance is on Calle del Portico Pisani.

In 1751 Andrea Pisani bought the building from Giovanni Poleni, a physicist, mathematician and astronomer at the University of Padua, so that the Pisani family, already owners of the nearby Palazzo Pisani di Santo Stefano built around 1615, would have a presence on the Grand Canal. The wall separating the two properties was demolished and the buildings joined, an arrangement that lasted only a few years. In 1816 it passed to Carlo Felice of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, and in 1945 to Count Leonardo De Lazara, who restored it.

The name recalls the Pisani family, owners of the adjoining Palazzo Pisani a Santo Stefano, built around 1615. Andrea Pisani bought this smaller palace in 1751 from Giovanni Poleni, a physicist, mathematician and astronomer at the University of Padua, so the family could face the Grand Canal. The two buildings were joined by demolishing the dividing wall, an arrangement that lasted only a few years.

The palace is not a hotel and its main entrance is on Calle del Portico Pisani, not on the Grand Canal; the stone portal facing the water is decorative only. Reach it on foot from the Ponte dell'Accademia or Campo Santo Stefano, near the mouth of the Rio del Santissimo. It stands beside Palazzo Benzon Foscolo and is joined to Palazzo Pisani di Santo Stefano.

The palace's stone portal on the Grand Canal is purely decorative: the entrance is actually on Calle del Portico Pisani, a landward alley. The facade pairs bifora windows in a scheme also found at Palazzo Giustinian Bernardo, and carries a coat of arms and Istrian stone string courses.