page_title: Daniel Sargent Curtis
section_title: Life in Italy
hierarchical_section_title: Daniel Sargent Curtis / Life in Italy
context_page_description: Daniel Sargent Curtis was an American lawyer and banker. He was a trustee of the Boston Public Library, director of the Boston National Bank and owner of Palazzi Barbaro, Venice.
context_section_description: The Curtises left Boston in 1877 and got to Venice in 1880 where they lived most of their lives except for the many travels they took abroad, renting the palace when not at home.
  Beginning in 1881, they first rented a part of Palazzo Barbaro when in Venice but later, in 1885, they bought the second floor and the upper floors for $13,500.  Ariana said the palace was worth much more because its value shouldn't be set by the number of rooms but by its original 18th century decorations.  After it was sold by the last of the Barbaros the palace was in great decay and most of its original decoration, above all the paintings, were gone. The Curtises begun a thorough restoration and kept the palace with love and dedication bringing it back to social and cultural life and making it the meeting place for some cosmopolitan Americans of the time.
  Other non-American visitors were also there to visit or entertain the hosts, among others the British poet Robert Browning who was a regular at the Palazzo during his stays in Venice. Daniel developed a true friendship with the poet, and they spent many hours together including casual walks at the Lido. He gave his last public reading for the Curtises and their guests in November 1889 some thirty days before his death.
  Isabella Stewart Gardner, an art collector and the foremost patron of the arts in her time, fell in love with it renting it several times from 1890 when the Curtis' were travelling.  When she went back to Boston, she built her "Venetian Palazzo", an interpretation of the Renaissance palaces of Venice.
  John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Whistler and Claude Monet were just some of the many artists who gathered there. Other members of the "Barbaro Circle" included Bernard Berenson, William Merritt Chase and Edith Wharton. Another supporter of the circle was Charles Eliot Norton.
caption: Ariana and Daniel Curtis in the Salone of the Palazzo, c. 1888
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