SegnieSogni

Le rio terra dei Birri est un ancien canal assèché, qui a donné son nom à toute cette ancienne contrada, les Birri ou Biri. Le nom du canal, à l'origine Biria, aurait été une cacographie de Bierum, ce qui signifiait que le canal donna force motrice à un moulin. Le Birri grande et le Birri piccolo furent séparés par la calle Stella. Les birri comprennent tout l'îlot au nord du rio de Ca'Widmann et à l'ouest du rio dei Mendicanti.

Calle Colombina 2

Juergen Schulz,The House of Titian, Aretino and Sansovino,1982 :

In 1531 Titian moved to a new house on the Campo rotto, S. Canziano. Behind the later Palazzo Donà delle Rose, this was on the opposite side of the Rio dei Gesuiti from the church of the Gesuiti for which he would later supply his prodigious Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. The area, the Biri Grande, was only partly built up. The house, some of the structure of which survives, is the study of a recent article, from which the following information is drawn, by Juergen Schulz ('The House of Titian, Aretino and Sansovino', in Titian, His World and His Legacy, ed. D. Rosand, New York, 1982, pp. 73-82). It had been built in 1527. Titian took a lease, and subsequently also leased additional ground. His residence was on the upper floor and there were two further apartments below, initially tenanted. Annexed to the house was a substantial building -- which Titian enlarged -- referred to a tezza (shed) or bottega (workshop): this, as Schulz observes, was presumably Titian's studio. A letter of 1540 from Francesco Priscianese gives a graphic description of an entertainment Titian held in the house during which 'we spent the time in looking at the life-like figures in the excellent pictures, of which the house was full' (Schulz, p. 82).

Trovandomi da qualche tempo a Venezia sono stato a cercare la casa-atelier di Tiziano Vecellio al Biri Grande: solo che non è cosa agevole, visto che il sapientissimo Giulio Lorenzetti che di Venezia e del suo estuario quasi tutto sa, tace al riguardo. Ma come Tommaso ho insistito fino a che un amico m’ha messo sulla buona strada.

La bottega-atelier al Biri Grande è alle spalle del sontuoso palazzo Donà delle Rose, appartenuto a potente aristocrazia veneziana, uno dei pochi lungo una calle che conduce alle Fondamenta Nuove. Oggi il luogo che fu uno dei centri dell’arte europea del Cinquecento è solo un deposito.