Robert Browning: Death in Venice

Walking Tours of Venice

Robert and 'Pen' Browning standing outside Ca' Rezzonico

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On December 12th, 1889, the great Victorian poet Robert Browning passed away peacefully in the Ca' Rezzonico. His death is a marked by a plaque on the side wall of the palazzo.

In 1887 Browning's only son, Pen, bought the Ca' Rezzonico on the strength of his recent marriage to a wealthy American heiress, Fannie Coddington. The couple quickly set about restoring the great Baroque pile, one of the grandest palazzi on the Grand Canal.

Two years later Browning senior was staying at the Ca' Rezzonico when he fell ill. He had caught a chill while out walking in the fog on the Lido. The chill turned to bronchitis and the poet died in the evening of December 12th. 

Pen hoped to bury his father next to his mother in the protestant cemetery in Florence and was disappointed to find that it had closed.

Robert Browning is buried in Poets’ corner in Westminster Abbey.

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Plaque to Robert Browning

Ca' Rezzonico