Ca Bembo, Renaissance palace in Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy

Ca Bembo is a sixteenth-century palazzo on the rio San Trovaso in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, not on the Grand Canal. It has a large garden behind the building, where an Istrian stone wellhead carved with the Barbarigo arms, attributed to Antonio Rizzo's workshop, stands. The facade, rebuilt in the 1550s under Agostino Barbarigo, has a portal attributed to Jacopo Sansovino and a piano nobile mixing Doric and Corinthian capitals.

The site belonged to the Dorsoduro branch of the Barbarigo family, documented along the San Trovaso canal from 1374 and divided among Francesco "il Ricco" Barbarigo's sons in 1464, when it passed to Girolamo. In the 1550s his grandson Agostino Barbarigo had the palace rebuilt by Jacopo Sansovino and commissioned Tintoretto frescoes for the facade. After Pietro Barbarigo died childless in Corfu in 1618, the palace passed to the Marcello and then the Sangiantoffetti families.

The name Ca' Bembo has no clear link to the Bembo family; the palace belonged to the Barbarigo branch of San Trovaso, then to the Marcello and the Sangiantoffetti, merchants from Crema ennobled for financing the Cretan war. The Sangiantoffetti had the interiors redecorated with allegorical frescoes by the Paduan painter Costantino Cedini, which survive today.

Ca Bembo stands on the rio San Trovaso in Dorsoduro, not on the Grand Canal, so it is reached on foot through the calli rather than by water bus. The building houses Ca' Foscari University's language department, so interiors are normally closed to visitors. The large garden behind the palace was closed over suspected pollution, and tests later found dioxin.

The name has no link to the Bembo family: the palace belonged to the Barbarigo branch of Dorsoduro, called de Osso Duro, documented along the San Trovaso canal from 1374. In the garden behind the palace stands an Istrian stone wellhead carved with Barbarigo coats of arms, attributed to the workshop of Antonio Rizzo and dating from the late 15th century.