Typical house

These drawings show the typical layout of a venetian merchants house. The ground floor has a double height entrace hall with single height warehouses on the sides. The mezzanine levels above housed the offices. On the landward a intermediate small, walled courtyard space articulated the transition from public to private. It was common for the courtyard to have an outside staircase leading up to the more residential piano nobile with its central hall (Portega).