The Ca' d'Oro is the most celebrated palazzo on the Grand Canal; a fabulous Gothic palace which used to gleam with gold. Nowadays it houses a small art museum. Ca', short for 'casa' (house) is what all Venice's grand buildings were called once, when the title 'palazzo' belonged only to the Ducal Palace. Ca' d'Oro means 'House of Gold', and this building was once famed for its decorated and gilded façade. Even now this has worn away, it is still a breathtaking sight.The Ca' d'Oro was built between 1420 and 1434 for a rich Venetian, Marino Contarini. In her invaluable guide The Architectural History of Venice, Deborah Howard suggests that the building was in part a memorial to his first wife, whose family had owned the palace previously on the site, architectural fragments of which were carefully incorporated into the new building.Two teams of stonemasons worked on the construction, one headed by Matteo Raverti from Milan and the other by local Venetian Giovanni Bon. The building is clad in a variety of white and coloured marbles, with one of the most elaborate façades you'll ever see. As Contarini must have intended, the building would have staggered his fellow Venetians, not least because of the extravagance of its coloured decoration: gilding on the window traceries and carvings, ultramarine paint and varnished red Verona marble.