Come On A My Palazzo

Marcantonio Brandolini grew up within these historic walls, skateboarding through his family's 15th-century Gothic home. Now, from ground floor offices that are more Venice Beach than Doge's Palace, he leads an artisanal incubator that may just save the lagoon from oblivion.

- CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN

A few years ago, when I was writing a novel about reckless young men in Venice, I stumbled upon a photo online that conjured the spirit of my characters. In it, a scruffy-haired twentysomething sits precariously on the edge of a palazzo rooftop, staring out over the city as if he owns the place. Later I discovered that the young man in that photo wasn’t a random backpacker but Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, descendant of one of Venice’s most noble and socially well-connected families. The rooftop on which he’s perched is his family’s majestic 15th-century Gothic palazzo on the Grand Canal. By most definitions, the handsome young man in the photo really does own the place.

This past summer, on a blisteringly hot morning, Marcantonio stands at the helm of his speedboat. We are shooting across the choppy waves of the lagoon on our way to the venerable glass manufacturing island of Murano. Marcantonio is tall and tanned, with freckled skin from his daily swims, or perhaps his kitesurfing sessions off the Lido. His hair is light brown with a tinge of red, a color that used to be called “Venetian blond.” He’s dressed in a grubby pair of board shorts and a white T-shirt and baseball cap. The boat he’s driving isn’t one of the polished wood motoscafi with leather banquette seats beloved by rich tourists but a utilitarian slate-gray vessel of a kind used by mussel fishermen. Entirely absent in the relaxed, confident, smiling 33-year-old are the pompous airs of nth-generation European aristos. In point of fact, as we reach the Murano docks faster than I’ve ever crossed the lagoon, Marcantonio is here on business. He’s picking up supplies and checking in on one of the furnaces that produce a signature line of the striking high-end drinking glasses for his company, Laguna B.