The Fondaco dei Tedeschi is more than five hundred years old and is in its third or fourth life.
But what exactly is the Fondaco?
It was the trading station of the German nations in the great days of the Republic of Venice, when half of the world's trade passed through here.
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi burned less than a hundred years after its birth, in 1318 and again in 1505. It was the last great fire, before it was inaugurated and blessed again in just three years.
Born to host German merchants, Hungarians, Austrians and many northern Europeans arrived later. The fondaco housed the nerve center of the commerce of stones and fabrics, assuming at the same time the aspect of a real ghetto.
It was Napoleon who later transformed it into a customs house, before becoming a post office in 1870. The building was heavily renovated twice, between 1929 and 1939 under the fascist regime Someone still remembers the sinister aquarium, under a glass roof opaque with dirt, which was used to make phone calls or send postcards in the '60s and '70s.
Now, after the important investment of the Benetton family, the Fondaco is a temple of luxury signed LVMH (Louis Vuitton).
But it still lives on its incredible history, one of the thousands of a Venice still to be discovered, even for us Italians.
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