In Venice, every woven thread tells a story spanning the centuries. Celebrating 150 years of Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua means looking to the past with gratitude and to the future with curiosity, honoring a long artisanal legacy whose roots reach back to 1499 and which has officially taken shape under our family name since 1875.
To commemorate this extraordinary milestone, we have chosen a setting of rare beauty: the Palazzo Venart Luxury Hotel, a 15th-century residence overlooking the Grand Canal. From October 21 to November 21, 2025, its halls will host the exhibition celebrating the history, craftsmanship, and elegance of Bevilacqua fabrics.
An Evening of Elegance and Poetry: The Inauguration at Palazzo Venart
The inauguration was an unforgettable event. The spaces of Palazzo Venart, already aglow with the soft light of 17th-century chandeliers, welcomed friends, architects, designers, and textile enthusiasts into an atmosphere blending poetry and elegance.
The evening unfolded with symbolic moments: Venezia da Vivere and Seguso Vetri d’Arte presented Rodolfo and Alberto Bevilacqua, the President and CEO, respectively, with the Blue Artisan 2025 award, a tribute to their commitment to passing on artisanal knowledge to new generations. Alessandra De Nitto from the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte was also in attendance, bearing witness to how artisanal mastery remains a living heritage meant to be preserved and shared.
The Blue Artisan Award 2025
New Creations to Celebrate a Century and a Half of Textile Art
During the event, we unveiled the new digital historical archive, the result of months of collective work and constant dialogue with historians and textile experts. This archive is a tribute to our history, but above all, a gift to future generations, so that the traditions that constitute the historical and artistic heritage of mankind are not lost.
From this archive emerge our newest creations, presented for the first time during the evening: three Art Nouveau inspired velvets that intertwine memory and innovation. Flora, with its harmonious dance of dragonflies and flowers; Loto, a symbol of rebirth, rendered in a refined composition of balance and purity; and Glicine, a cascade of flowering clusters flowing through space with sinuous elegance.
Flora Soprarizzo Handmade Velvet
Created on our historic looms, they intertwine silk and natural poetry, as does handmade brocade, a precious fabric that we have resumed creating. This jewel of pure silk is enriched with fine metallic threads that bring light and sophistication to the textile, celebrating the continuity of our craft.
Handmade Brocade in Silk and Fine Metallic Threads – Photo Gallery
For the first time, we have also brought our weaves to the walls: the Bevilacqua wallpaper collection transforms historic patterns into living surfaces, intertwining texture and light. Grottesche, Rinascimento, Fiere, Fioroni, Paradiso, Fontane, and Walls: each motif is drawn from our archive of over 3,500 designs and reinterpreted in a contemporary key, so that each pattern becomes not just decoration, but a narrative that envelops and transports the viewer.
The Bevilacqua Wallpaper Collection
Fiere Wallpaper – Indigo
Rinascimento Wallpaper – Copper Rose
The exhibition also features the commemorative volume marking our 150th anniversary, a unique collection of historical fabrics, paper patterns, and unpublished documents recounting our journey. Here, visitors can leaf through the memory of Venetian weaving, witnessing the bond between tradition and innovation, between artisan hands and a contemporary vision.
Click here to discover more about the book and purchase your copy.
A Cultural Project within the Venice Fashion Week
This exhibition is part of the Master Artisans series, conceived by Venezia da Vivere for Palazzo Venart, and is included in the program of Venice Fashion Week 2025. The project highlights Venetian craftsmanship as an integral part of the city’s cultural identity, creating a dialogue between guests, visitors, and the legacy of master artisans. Palazzo Venart thus becomes not only a stage for beauty but also an ambassador of ancient and vibrant knowledge, of a Venice that continues to tell its story through art and craftsmanship.
The Bevilacqua Wallpaper Collection
An Invitation to Discover the Soul of Venetian Weaving
Visiting the exhibition means immersing oneself in the magic of velvets, silks, and brocades — breathing in the history of the Serenissima through threads woven over centuries, and encountering the very soul of our weaving tradition. A heritage that continues to live on in the hands of our weavers, on our historic looms, and in the dreams of those who gaze upon a fabric and recognize the pulse of time within it.
From October 21 to November 21, 2025, visitors will be able to experience our history firsthand, discover the new Art Nouveau velvets, handmade brocade, wallpaper collection, and the 150th anniversary commemorative book.
Visits are by appointment only: info.venart@ldchotels.com or +39 041 5233784.
Through the centuries, every thread woven by Bevilacqua has become voice, memory, and light — and today, at Palazzo Venart, that light shines brighter than ever.
