Orient Express Venezia, Palazzo Donà Giovannelli

At the confluence of two canals, in the Cannaregio sestiere, a fifteenth-century palace returns to life as the second hotel in the world by Orient Express, following La Minerva in Rome. Built in 1436 and shaped over the centuries by the families whose name it still carries, Palazzo Donà Giovannelli has been reawakened by architect Aline Asmar d’Amman as a theatrical sequence of wonders, where the lost colours of Venice—its colori persi—resurface across silks, velvets and stone.

Beneath frescoed vaults and ornate stuccowork, forty-seven rooms and suites unfold like chapters of a single story. Watered silks capture the reflections of the canals; sculpted marble fireplaces, Murano glass and patinated surfaces hold the memory of centuries, reinterpreted through a contemporary, luminous eye. Each of the six Signature Suites reveals its own hidden treasure, from nineteenth-century frescoes to windows opening onto the most coveted views over the Serenissima.

For PAD, Palazzo Donà Giovannelli is the second Orient Express address entrusted to our care: a project where millwork and furnishings meet six centuries of history, and where every detail carries the weight of a place that has always known how to astonish.

photo credits: Giulio Ghirardi