Aman took one of the eight great palazzos on the Grand Canal and left the frescoes where they were. What it added was a garden, and quiet.
The water taxi drops you at a private jetty on the Grand Canal. A door opens in a wall of stone, and the noise of Venice stops behind it. Palazzo Papadopoli has stood on this bend of the water since the sixteenth century, one of only eight monumental palazzos on the canal. Aman has run it as a hotel since 2013 and changed almost nothing you can see.
The Coccina family built the palazzo in the 1560s. Two noble floors rise above the entrance hall, their ceilings worked in fresco and gilt, their walls set with reliefs by Venetian hands. Jean-Michel Gathy handled the interiors and kept his own work quiet, so the old rooms still lead. What he added sits under the history rather than over it.
Courtesy of Aman — A salon on the piano nobile, Aman Venice
The rooms
There are twenty-four rooms and suites, which in a palazzo this size means room to move. Frescoes run across many of the ceilings. The Alcova Tiepolo Suite carries the name of the painter whose work survives in the house, and its bed sits under a painted sky more than two centuries old.
Windows are the real luxury. Almost every room faces the Grand Canal or one of the gardens, and the traffic below is boats. In the morning the light lifts off the water and moves across the ceilings. It is the kind of thing you stop planning your day to watch.
You are in the middle of Venice and entirely out of it.
The Splendid EditThe table
Arva serves Italian cooking on the piano nobile and out in the garden when the weather holds. The kitchen leans on the lagoon and the Veneto, fish and produce brought in close to the source. The Bar mixes a signature cocktail called Devozione and stays open into the small hours.
The house keeps adding to the Venice story without touching the walls. Aman Fine Fragrance released Umbr, built around the shade and stone of the old city. A second volume in the Meditations series takes Palazzo Papadopoli as its subject, in photographs and writing.
The gardens are the reason to book. One runs along the water, gravel and clipped hedge behind an iron rail, screened from the canal by a few feet of green. In the late afternoon the parasols go up and the gondolas slide past. You are in the middle of Venice and entirely out of it.
The verdict
Venice rewards people who know where to close a door. Aman Venice is one long door, opening off the Grand Canal into a house that has kept its ceilings and found two gardens. Book a room over the water. Take the late afternoon in the garden and let the city carry on without you.
The Splendid Edit on Aman Venice, Palazzo Papadopoli, on the Grand Canal. Rooms from approximately €2,000 per night, the Alcova Tiepolo Suite considerably more. Book through aman.com.
Photography courtesy of Aman — Aman Venice, Palazzo Papadopoli