Always wanted to own a cursed Venetian palace where ghosts are said to wander? Now is your chance: the infamous Ca’ Dario is for sale for 18 million Euros. It’s right on the Grand Canal, next to the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery, and it is about 10,000 square feet on five floors (although the main floor of most palazzos in Venice are used to store boats, because they flood with water all the time). It has six bedrooms and eight bathrooms and a bunch of fireplaces, and among other things, it has been the subject of a famous painting by Claude Monet. And according to Venetian gossip, it has been haunted for centuries.
The palazzo was built for Giovanni Dario, a wealthy merchant in the 1400s, and took about ten years. After it was finally completed in 1489, Dario lived in it for only a few years before he died in 1494. The palace was inherited by his daughter and her husband, Vincenzo Barbaro, who soon suffered a complete financial collapse. He was then stabbed to death, and soon afterwards, his wife Marietta killed herself. Their son Giacomo died in an ambush in the city of Candia in Crete, and another son, Gasparo, died at 18 soon after. The Barbaro family eventually sold the palace to Arbit Abdoll, an Armenian businessman.
Abdoll went bankrupt soon after and had to sell the palazzo to Rawdon Brown, the English historian, for just 480 pounds. Brown and his companion later died in what appeared to be a murder-suicide. The great Italian Tenor, Mario del Monaco planned to buy it in 1964, but while going to Venice to complete the transaction, he had a very serious car accident that brought his career to a standstill. It was bought by the Count Filippo Giordano delle Lanze, who was killed by a young friend and possibly lover.
The next owner was Christopher Lambert, manager of the British rock band, The Who. Once he moved into the palace, his drug abuse worsened to an extent where he wasn’t able to manage the band or himself. He had a financial breakdown and was arrested for possession of drugs. He told friends that he often slept in the Gondola Kiosk on the other side of Canal Grande, just to get away from the spirits that haunted him inside the Palace. In 1978 Fabrizio Ferrari bought it, after which his sister Nicoletta died in a car crash; he sold it to Raul Gardini, an Italian businessman who was involved in the huge Italian corruption scandal in the ’90s. He too committed suicide.
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