Hotel Danieli

In January 1834 George Sand and Alfred de Musset arrived at the Hotel Danieli on the Riva degli Schiavoni, a few doors from the Doge's Palace, and their affair ended there within weeks when Musset fell ill and Sand took up with his doctor. The hotel they chose was twelve years old. The palace it occupied was four and a half centuries old, built at the end of the fourteenth century for the Dandolo family, which had given Venice four doges.

History

Giuseppe Dal Niel, a hotelier known to Venetians as Danieli, rented the upper floors of Palazzo Dandolo in 1822 and opened them as a hotel, buying the whole palace a few years later. Charles Dickens stayed in 1844, John Ruskin while writing The Stones of Venice, and later Wagner, Balzac and Proust; the register is one of the longest in European hotel history. Through the twentieth century the Danieli passed to CIGA, the Italian grand hotel company, and in 1948 a modern wing, the Danielino, was added on the Riva beside the two older buildings. CIGA's sale in the 1990s brought the hotel into Starwood's Luxury Collection and then Marriott. In 2023 Four Seasons was announced as the operator of the Danieli after a full restoration of the three buildings, the largest change to the hotel since Dal Niel's day.

Architecture and design

The Palazzo Dandolo is Venetian Gothic in rose-coloured stone, with pointed arches and a tracery balcony over the Riva. Inside, the covered courtyard is the Danieli's signature: a four-storey atrium of Gothic arches and a gilded staircase climbing through them, lit by Murano glass. The Casa Nuova, a nineteenth-century palace next door, and the 1948 Danielino complete the hotel. Rooms in the old palace keep stucco, damask and painted ceilings; the newer buildings are plainer and have the roof terrace.

Rooms and suites

Rooms are divided among the three buildings, with the historic suites in the Palazzo Dandolo looking across the lagoon to San Giorgio Maggiore or over the courtyard. Room 10, where Sand and Musset stayed, was a fixture of the old hotel's lore. Suites in the Casa Nuova have the highest ceilings; rooms in the Danielino, the most light.

Dining

Terrazza Danieli, the restaurant on the roof, has a terrace along the lagoon with the islands and the Lido in view, and serves Venetian cooking. Bar Dandolo, in the atrium of the old palace, is known for afternoon tea and evening piano under the Gothic arches, and has been a meeting place for Venetians as much as guests.

Weddings and events

The salons of the Palazzo Dandolo, with their frescoes and chandeliers, host weddings, galas and dinners, and the rooftop terrace serves for receptions in warm weather. Meeting rooms in the newer buildings take conferences. Capacities and the state of the rooms during the restoration should be confirmed with the hotel.

Location

The Riva degli Schiavoni runs east from the Doge's Palace along the Bacino di San Marco, and the Danieli is a minute's walk from Piazza San Marco. The San Zaccaria vaporetto stop is directly in front, with boats to the Lido, Murano and the railway station; water taxis from Marco Polo airport take about half an hour, and Santa Lucia station is twenty minutes by vaporetto. A luxury hotel in Venice with this history and this address has been the city's best-known for two centuries.