Venetian Gothic is the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading network. Very unusually for medieval architecture, the style is both at its most characteristic in secular buildings, and the great majority of survivals are secular.
The best-known examples are the Doge's Palace and the Ca' d'Oro. Both feature loggias of closely spaced small columns, with heavy tracery with quatrefoil openings above, decoration along the roofline, and some coloured patterning to plain wall surfaces. Together with the ogee arch, capped with a relief ornament, and ropework reliefs, these are the most iconic characteristics of the style. Ecclesiastical Gothic architecture tended to be less distinctively Venetian, and closer to that in the rest of Italy.
The beginning of the style probably goes back no further than the 13th century, although the dates of early Gothic palaces, and especially features such as windows in them, are largely uncertain. It dominated the 14th century and because of the city's conservatism Venetian Gothic buildings, especially smaller palaces, continued to be built well into the second half of the 15th century, and Venetian Renaissance architecture very often retained reminiscences of its Gothic predecessor.
In the 19th century, inspired in particular by the writings of John Ruskin, there was a revival of the style, part of the broader Gothic Revival movement in Victorian architecture. Even in the Middle Ages, Venetian palaces were built on very constricted sites, and were tall rectangular boxes with decoration concentrated on the front facade. The style was therefore developed for a similar architectural context to that found in late 19th-century city centre streets.
Context
Venice is built on alluvial mud, and all buildings in the city were (and mostly still are) supported by large numbers of timber piles driven into the mud. Above that the normal building material is brick, although the grander facades were usually faced with Istrian stone, a fine limestone that is not strictly a marble, although it is often so called. This came by sea from quarries in Istria in the Terraferma, now in Croatia. Other stones with different colours were often used for contrast, especially a red stone from Verona. Marmorino stucco, made from grinding limestone, brick and terracotta fragments, was the typical finish for interior walls, and sometimes exteriors. Flat ceilings supported with timber beams were preferred to vaults, which might crack as the building settled on the pile foundations.
The main city was already very largely built up, with buildings tightly packed in the centre; this is shown clearly by Jacopo de' Barbari's huge woodcut View of Venice with an elevated view of the city in 1500. Because buildings were tightly packed, Venice was even more prone than other Italian city centres to fires, creating the need for many of the new buildings.
Palaces
Unlike the palaces or houses of wealthy families in other Italian cities, defence was not a major concern for Venetian palaces, which in any cases often had "moats" on some sides. The crowded city centre encouraged building high by the standards of the period, and the main access for light was often from the front facade, which therefore typically has more and larger windows than palaces elsewhere.
Most palaces doubled as places of business, on the ground floor, and homes above. The ground floors, which even when built were probably rather prone to periodic flooding, have relatively few rooms, and a rather grand stairway leading to the residential upper floors, where ceilings are rather low by the standards of palaces. The portico on a canal allowed goods to be loaded and unloaded, and led to a large space called the androne, where they were stored and business transacted. Upstairs, the portego or salone was another large room, centrally placed and usually "T"-shaped, received light from the windows and was the main space for dining and entertaining. To the rear an open staircase led to a small courtyard with a well-head and often a rear door to the street. In fact there are no true wells in Venice, and the well-head led down to a cistern sealed from the salty groundwater, which collected rainwater from the roof and courtyard through stone gutters leading to a sand filter system and the cistern.
By the 13th century porticos at the front were often abandoned, and replaced by one or more large doorways leading to the androne.