Palazzo Labia (c1700). Palazzo Labia is a baroque palace in Venice, Italy. Built in the 17th-18th century, it is one of the last great palazzi of Venice. Little known outside of Italy, it is most notable for the remarkable frescoed ballroom painted 1746-47 by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, with decorative works in trompe-l'oeil by Gerolamo Mengozzi-Colonna. In a city often likened to a cardboard film set, the Palazzo is unusual by having not only a formal front along the Grand Canal, but also a visible and formal facade at its rear, and decorated side as well, along the Cannaregio Canal. In Venice, such design is very rare. The palazzo was designed by the architect Andrea Cominelli. The principal facade is on the Cannaregio Canal while a lesser three bayed facade faces the Grand Canal. A later facade probably designed by Giorgio Massari is approached from the Campo San Geremia. The Labia family, who commissioned the palazzo, were originally Catalan and bought their way into nobility in 1646, hence considered arriviste by the old Venetian aristocracy. The wars with the Ottoman Empire had depleted the coffers of the Republic of Venice which then sold inscriptions into nobility, thus giving political clout. It has been said that they compensated their lack of ancestors by a great display of wealth. Today the Palazzo Labia is the sole remaining example of this ostentation. It is the members of the Labia family of the mid 18th century to whom the palazzo owes its notability today, it was inhabited by two brothers with their wives, children, and mother. The brothers Angelo Maria Labia and Paolo Antonio Labia employed Tiepolo at the height of his powers to decorate the ballroom. Employing Tiepolo seems to have been the most remarkable thing the brothers ever achieved. Angelo Maria became an Abb�, merely in order to escape the political obligations of an aristocrat of the Republic. Curiously his holy employment did not prevent him marrying. His wife however was a commoner, which indicates an almost morganatic status to the marriage. Angelo's chief interests were constructing a marionette theatre, which concealed real singers behind its scenes. The marionettes often performed satirical plays which Angelo wrote himself. In later life he failed to endear himself to Venetian society by becoming an informer to the dreaded inquisition. His younger brother Paolo, married conventionally into the old Venetian aristocracy, a class prepared to accept the Labia's money and hospitality if not equality. Paolo too never assumed any public duties. It appears that it was their mother, Maria Labia, who was the intellectual driving force of the family, in her youth a great beauty, she was painted by Rosalba Carriera. The French traveller and social commentator Charles de Brosses reported that in old age she had a lively wit, flirtatious nature, and possessed the finest collection of jewels in Europe. This collection was also portrayed in some of Tiepolo's work in the palazzo. While the palazzo was begun at the very end of the 17th century it can be considered a product of the 18th century when such architects as Baldassarre Longhena had previously dominated the palazzo architecture of the city in a style exemplified by dramatic facades, rich in moulding with detached columns, a style little changed since the late renaissance. Two little-known architects, Tremignon and Cominelli, were commissioned to design the palazzo. The selection of two comparatively unknown architects is strange, considering the desire of the Labia family to make an impression on Venetian society. However, the placement of the site more than compensated for any risk involved in the selection of unknown architects. The site chosen for the palazzo was the junction of the Cannaregio Canal and the Grand Canal in the parish of San Geremia, in fact the church of San Geremia was the palazzo's immediate neighbour, its campanile seemingly incorporated into the palazzo. The Cannaregio Canal is one of the most important tributaries of the Grand Canal. While like many of the other larger palazzi in Venice the Palazzo Labia is rectangular in design built around an inner courtyard, the two architects Tremignon and Cominelli broke the architectural traditions of such architects as Longhena, by designing the facades of the Palazzo Labia to be more simple and less cluttered, than those of the earlier Venetian classical palazzi, while still maintaining a baroque richness achieved through the effect of light and shadow, a second break with Venetian architectural tradition was that the new palazzo had three facades, it was common practice in Venice for only the waterfront facade to have a richness of detail, while the rear elevations were often an evolved mismatch of asymmetrical windows and styles.