Casa di Bepi Suà Attraction

Casa di Bepi Suà, the most colorful house in Burano

Near the Piazza Galuppi and in a small street hidden behind the busiest streets of Burano, the façade of the Casa di Bepi Suà stands out radically from the neighboring houses. Circles, squares, triangles, rectangles and other geometric patterns interlock in a profusion of red, blue, yellow, green, orange or purple, forming an almost psychedelic composition.
Neither a palace nor the work of an academic artist, this small two-story house belonged to the Toselli family. It was here that Giuseppe Toselli was born in 1920, nicknamed Bepi Suà (1920-2002), a singular character in Burano life. From the 1960s, he gradually transformed the façade into a personal work that he never stopped modifying.

This house is especially worth a detour for what it tells about Burano beyond its monuments and lace.

Bepi delle Caramelle

A lover of cinema, Bepi worked at the Favin cinema in Burano, where he was notably responsible for the maintenance of the screening room. After the establishment closed, he began selling candies on the Piazza Galuppi, which earned him his other nickname of Bepi delle Caramelle, “Bepi of the candies”. As for the nickname Suà, “sweated” or “perspired” in Venetian, it is said to have been inspired by his habit of staying outside in the summer sun without worrying much about the heat.

His taste for cinema did not disappear with the Favin. During summer evenings, until the early 1980s, Bepi improvised a small open-air cinema in his campiello. He stretched a white sheet against a wall and projected cartoons, comedies and films intended especially for the children of Burano. The residents brought their chairs and Bepi sometimes distributed his candies to the audience. The interior of his house reflected the same passion and accumulated televisions, recording devices, projectors, film reels, images and collages.

From a private home to a Burano curiosity

Giuseppe Toselli passed away in 2002. His façade, abundantly photographed during his lifetime and then restored, has since become one of the most recognizable images of Burano. Its interest lies less in the architecture of the house itself than in the story of its occupant: it constitutes the vestige of a popular and spontaneous creation, closely linked to the daily life of the island in the 20th century.

Sources and further information

La Nuova Venezia — La vita tutta a colori di “Bepi Suà” ; Costruttori di Babele — Giuseppe Toselli ; Isola di Burano — Casa di Bepi Suà.