April 7, 1944

exhibition of the documents on Palazzo Bomben and Palazzo Caotorta

Tuesday 8 April-Saturday 17 May 2008

Before work began, someone sent a letter to the newspapers asking for Palazzo Bomben-Mandruzzato to be kept as a ruin, as a constant memorial of the Allied bombing of 7th April 1944 and the terrible damage it caused: they were wrong.

The documents show that it was not bombs but human neglect that reduced the back of the palace to the skeleton that many still remember.

The palazzo was actually hit by a bomb, which penetrated and damaged the roof, going through the wooden floors without encountering the resistance that would have triggered the fuse and caused the bomb to explode. Failure to restore the roof allowed rain to penetrate into the building and caused the floors to gradually collapse, as well as some of the internal walls, being much less solid than the outer ones.

The two buildings have an ancient history: located at the margins of the town’s historical settlement, by the Roman “murus”, the site was covered by archaeological excavations that unearthed a trellis work flooring, dating back to 1000 A.D., similar to those found in Venice and on the islands of the lagoon, laid on the bank of the Roggia just under the water’s current level. The survey did not unearth other previous remains but an excavation made about 21 metres from the bank of the waterway uncovered some poles still in the clay-rich ground that might belong to the “murus”.

Being close to the town’s cathedral, the historic seat of the temporal power, favoured the concentration of noble mansions or clergy houses along the whole street: Bartolomeo Burchiellati provides extensive documentation of this in his manuscript Gli sconci et diroccamenti di Trevigi, nel tempo di mia vita, …, later referred to by Matteo Sernagiotto in his Passeggiate.

With the settlement of the commune period, of which rare testimonies have been uncovered (a fake brick decoration fragment, small circular masonry vaults), Palazzo Caotorta was extensively modified in the centuries thereafter, especially after the 1500s, perhaps due to the “breakdown” for the town’s defences during the War of Cambrai. The modifications never involved the total demolition of the existing buildings, as is the custom nowadays, but through additions and adaptations, preserving parts of the masonry and recovering and reusing the construction materials as much as possible.

After the end of the Republic of Venice (late 1700s and first decade of the 1800s) a further significant change took place, not necessarily connected to transfers of ownership, which also maintained all possible structures but “reduced” the elevations to the forms and proportions dictated by the principles of neoclassical architecture.

Especially noteworthy is the solution that was devised at Palazzo Bomben offering the illusion of symmetry to the facade on via Cornarotta and the insertion, on the same facade of Palazzo Caotorta, of the trifora and baroque style balcony, which seems to have been recovered from another building.

In the second half of the 1800s Palazzo Caotorta underwent further internal rearrangement: the owners retained the use of the main floor only while ground floor, mezzanine and second floor were adapted as rental residences, extensively modifying the east annexes and building a second indoor staircase for the exclusive use of the owners.

The renovations carried out between 2001 and 2003 fulfilled the need to structurally and functionally adapt the two palazzi to its new intended use, while formally respecting the radical renovations carried out in the early 1800s, by faithfully restoring the uncompromised original elements and preserving every last discovered testimony.