Eugenio Miozzi’s angular, Rationalist ‘Palace of Cinema’ was in keeping with the ambitious modernism of the early 1930s, when business tycoon and Fascist minister Count Giuseppe di Volpi cleverly conceived of the Venice Film Festival as a means of fostering the Lido's upmarket tourism industry.

It was an inspired idea in keeping with Volpi’s other modernising projects – the Schneider Trophy air race, the casino and an international motorboat race – all of which lured a new breed of moneyed American, English and French holidaymakers to the island.

Inaugurated in August 1932 on the terrace of the Excelsior, the festival was the first of its kind (Cannes was a relative latecomer in 1946) and capitalised on the boom in the film-making industry. So great was its success, in fact, Miozzi’s palazzo was commissioned within three years and the festival transferred to its new venue in 1938 where it still takes place today.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Monastero di San Lazzaro degli Armeni

0.54 MILES

Tours of this historic island monastery are usually conducted by its multilingual Armenian monks, who amply demonstrate the institution’s reputation for…

2. Grand Hotel des Bains

0.64 MILES

This vast belle époque hotel once epitomised Lido glamour, but it's been boarded up since 2016 – an oversized symbol of the beach resort's fall from…

3. Grande Albergo Ausonia & Hungaria

0.71 MILES

The Lido's take on art nouveau reaches an over-the-top apotheosis in this garish 1907 hotel, decorated with wreath-bearing cherubs and tiles in a…

4. Blue Moon

0.75 MILES

Named after a glamorous nightclub that once stood on the beach, the Blue Moon serves the spiaggia comunale (public beach) at the northern end of the Lido…

5. Lido di Venezia

0.75 MILES

The Lido is no longer the glamorous bolthole of Hollywood starlets and European aristocracy that it once was, but its groomed beaches, scattering of art…

7. Museo del Manicomio

1.11 MILES

As well as a poignant collection of patients' before-and-after photos, this small museum contains the full paraphernalia of psychiatric treatment of the…

8. Antico Cimitero Israelitico

1.4 MILES

This overgrown graveyard was Venice’s main Jewish cemetery from 1386 until the 18th century. Tombstones range in design from Venetian Gothic to distinctly…