Rio di Ca' Widmann

A topographical cabinet card showing the Ca' Widmann, also sometimes called the Palazzo Widmann, and the canal on which it stands in the Cannaregio quarter of Venice.

The Widmanns were a noble family of German origin with a connection to Venice dating back at least to the mid-seventeenth century. They took possession of the palace that bears their name following the marriage in 1740 of Lodovico Widmann and Quintilia Rezzonico, granddaughter of Pope Clément XIII.

Photographed by Carlo Ponti of Venice.

Ponti studied photography in Paris in the 1840s. In 1852, he obtained a license to produce and sell photographs in Venice. He ran the first of the big photographic businesses in the city, producing albums with architectural views of great artistic sensitivity. He was also the inventor of camera lenses suitable for panoramic photography.