Now you will see Palazzetto Pisani, built in the 1500’s. The name comes from the wealthy Pisani family who bought it in the mid-18th century, knocking down the wall that separated it from their much larger palace behind the one you see, so that they could boast a view onto the Grand Canal; until then, this building was home to the scientist and mathematician Giovanni Poleni, at the time a celebrity on par with Newton and Leibniz, and who also founded the faculty of Physics at the University of Padua, one of the oldest universities in the world.
