Caffè Florian Opens on Piazza San Marco

• Caffè Florian opened on 29 December 1720 in the Procuratie Nuove of Piazza San Marco as Alla Venezia Trionfante (Venice the Triumphant), but it was soon known by the name of its first owner, Floriano Francesconi.^[1]
• It is the oldest coffee house in continuous operation in Italy; Antico Caffè Greco in Rome, its nearest Italian rival, dates from 1760.^[1][3]
• It was the only coffee house that admitted women, which drew Casanova, and its early patrons included the playwright Carlo Goldoni and Goethe; Lord Byron, Marcel Proust and Charles Dickens came later.^[1][3]
• In the mid-18th century it was one of the few places where Gasparo Gozzi's Gazzetta Veneta could be bought, making it a meeting place for different social classes.^[1][3]
• The two original rooms grew to four in 1750; in 1796 the State Inquisitors forced Valentino Francesconi to close it because its international clientele had become a gathering point for French Jacobins, and after the French entered Venice in May 1797 he reopened it under the plain name Florian.^[1]
• In 1858 Lodovico Cadorin redecorated it as a set of themed rooms: the Sala del Senato (painted by Giacomo Casa), the Sala Greca, the Sala Cinese and the Sala Orientale; two more rooms followed in 1872 and a Liberty room in 1920.^[1]
• It played a part in the 1848 Venetian Revolution, when the Senate Room was a patriots' meeting point and the café sheltered wounded fighters; from 1893 it hosted exhibitions linked to the Venice art Biennale, and since 1988 its Temporanea installations.^[1]
• Its live orchestra, playing outdoors in the Italian café-concert tradition, is still part of the terrace experience, and a Florence branch on Via del Parione opened in the early 21st century.^[1][3]

Food photographs are from the restaurant’s official website and show seasonal or representative dishes; they may differ from the current menu and do not document the historical opening date.