BAROZZI
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A family

The Patrician of Venice Benedetto Barozzi Prince of Santorin
After the barbarian invasions of IIe and IIIe centuries, the populations of the neighbor territories as Padoue, Trévise, Oderzo, Quartodaltino, Aquilée were sent to colonize the islands of the lagoon.
The important position of the Barozzi family comes from this time. Indeed, the family of The Patrician of Venice Benedetto Barozzi Prince of Santorin is one of the twelve famous families known as "apostolic" founders of Venice around the VIIIe century after JC. The first written documents mentioning the family go back to 724 after J.C. when a "Gaulo Dux triumviro romano", appears as a candidate to a Doge election. The family, though never elected as a Doge, participated in the administrative and political life of the Republic of Venice. Its representatives took part on several occasions to the Council of the Ten, an important legislative body and participated to the diplomatic and administrative negotiations in Greece and minor Asia, vital colonies of the Venetian economy.

 

About 1410, this emerit family acquired the Principality of the Islands of Santorin, Thira and Nasso where it maintained order for more than 200 years. The Republic expressed its unlimited confidence in the family, as these islands had a strategic role.

The Republic of Venice gave many other tasks entrusted to the members of the family.
At the end of the XIXe century, the title of Primo Sovvrintendente alle Belle Arti e ai beni Culturali nell'Italia regia (First superintendent of Beautiful Arts and cultural Goods of the Kingdom of Italy) was given to Dino Barozzi. Benedetto Barozzi still carries the title inherited from his great family : N H. (Nobil Homo) Patrizio Veneto Principle di Santorino Thira E Nasso, Comte since the conquest of part of the austro-Hungarian Empire by the Venitian republic.
Benedetto Barozzi

The Barozzi Palace 		A childhood

When I was child, I was surrounded by antiquities. At home, all furniture was ancient. Every Sunday, my father took me along to the museums. My parents always had residences where time seemed to have stopped in 1700, as themselves and only spoke to me of the past.

All my youth was oriented towards the past, in fact, I never lived in a temporal reality. My thoughts always led me to the search of the past.
From a tragedy is born a vocation
I remember a splendid window in the palace on the Grande Canal where I lived with my parents until I was 30 years old. It was filled with ancient glasses from the Roman period until the years 1700. From time to time, my father religiously opened it, took one of the glasses and had me holding it.
Corner Palace on Ca' Grande
I remember that this ritual, often repeated, gave birth to a love for these objects which did not leave me since.

One day, because of a small earthquake, the window collapsed and all glasses broke in thousand pieces for ever.
It was an immense mourning for all of us as well as an enormous cultural loss. A few years later, I met a Master glass-maker impassioned with his work. He reproduced with great care old glasses. I approached him and after many experiments, we started to understand the composition, the colors and the secrecies of the Masters at the apogee of the Venetian glass. While I worked with him, I saw the pieces that I had seen destroyed in the house of my father years before, coming back to life.

This search continues today with love and passion.