Fire In Fundaco dei Tedeschi: Sanudo Diaries: January 27, 1505

In the night, Marin Sanudo tells us there was a great fire in what he called the Fundaco dei Tedeschi, or 'the German Warehouse'. Many groups, guilds as well as families had central entrepots for all their trade purposes. Even a few ethnic groups in time, would have their own.
The Germans had been here in this spot since the thirteenth century when they had established a house to maintain business - on the water - for their links with the eastern Meditteranean at the height of the crusades there. For any group of merchants to lose a great house in Venice could be devastating. Every kind of transaction occurred there, from payments and loans, as well as the many kinds of stores of goods and even, buillion stored was for them, the fruit of generations of work . The Germans were valued trade partners, as well, so people were willing to help and put people up until a new place could be built. But the setback weighed heavy on minds during a winter of bad news.

Sanudo Diaries: January 27, 1505 (6:126); "There was little damage to the things kept there since they were intent on getting their stuff out even before the doors were thrown open. Now the building is all burned, including the gold storerooms, etc. The Germans have found lodgings here and there. The entire following day it burned. Some who went to help were killed by a wall that collapsed. And together with the news from Coloqut..., it is an ill omen that the warehouse burned."

nedits: This refers to the lack of a return of the ships from Calcutta, India bearing pepper that year. The ships sent to Alexandria the prior October to pick up the yearly shipment had been somehow delayed. The details of the story would appear in the form of letters later, but for now there was gossip amid already much uncertainty. It was well understood now that this fire could cause problems with trade and shipments headed north, to Germany and her trade partnes, as well as those already delayed from the east.

Today, Bennetton owns it  and wants to refurbish it. Here's a quick vimeo spot. It's worth mentioning that the interior here in this video has been much the same for centuries since this fire's replacement. It stayed the German Warehouse for all that time, only becoming a post office since 1939, the beginning of WWII.
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All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008