Most cities need a mill. Until the late 19th century Venice had none, and the idea of building one came to a young man of Swiss origin named Giovanni Stucky. The huge building in neo-gothic style you see was once the Mulino Stucky, ‘mulino’ meaning, of course, mill. The idea was clearly a great success, and it gave jobs to over 1500 Venetians, at a time when poverty was ripe and employment scarce. Giovanni Stucky had it running like clockwork, but in 1910 he was murdered by one of his own workers with a razor blade; his son, who witnessed his father’s assassination, took over the business, but his poor management and the hardship of two world wars led to its decline, and in 1955 it was shut down. It remained utterly abandoned until 2003, when the Hilton family acquired the property and turned it into a renowned 5-star hotel.
