It was opened by Floriano Francesconi under the name "Alla Venezia trionfante" and immediately boasted an illustrious clientele, such as Carlo Goldoni and Giacomo Casanova. The following years saw it crossed its threshold by such illustrious personalities as Silvio Pellico, Niccolò Tommaseo, Giuseppe Parini, Daniele Manin and then Lord Byron, Ugo Foscolo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Antonio Canova, François-René de Chateaubriand. Madame de Staël, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Charles Dickens, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Marcel Proust, Henry James, Igor Stravinsky, Amedeo Modigliani--practically a fixed stop for every intellectual visiting Venice.
