A SECOND home in Venice says a lot about you – and not only that you have lots of money. It also indicates you are well-read, know the difference between Tintoretto and Tiepolo, and are possessed of a complex soul in tune with the city’s mixture of exuberance and melancholy. It is also a statement of confidence in the redemptive power of technology: hopes are high that the planned completion in 2011 of the Mose (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) flood barrier will save the city from sinking.

All this probably explains why so many UK chief executives are so eager to have an apartment in the city, or even a palazzo. Other buyers include the rich but troubled of various nations taking time out to find themselves. This journey of self-discovery is, of, course, best undertaken in one of the city’s smarter districts: the best addresses are around the Grand Canal on the stretch that flows down from the Accademia gallery in the Dorsoduro area to the San Marco, the best-known sestiere (district).

A favoured option for all types of buyers is an apartment on the piano nobile, a grand upper floor of a palazzo, combining grandeur and convenience.

But there is nowadays little hope of picking up a bargain from a contessa fallen on hard times: most vendors are overseas investors rather than destitute ducal families. The status symbol of a property rises with its historical associations. Five apartments in the 16th-century Palazzo Mocenigo on the southern curve of the Grand Canal – sold last year for €6.2 million (£4.4 million) – are now separately for sale at prices from €1.4 million to €4.6 million.

All need complete restoration. But a study of the Mocenigo’s past could while away a week or two of the two years probably required for the refurbishment. In 1817 Lord Byron moved in with several mistresses and two monkeys and stayed for three years while he wrote sections of Childe Harold and Don Juan. His rent was £200 a year, about £14,000 in today’s money.

In 2007 a week’s rent for a large apartment can be as high as £5,000 a week, which explains why some owners are keen to cover some of their costs through buy-to-let.

There is something appropriately poetic in Mocenigo’s state of glamorous decrepitude. Massive Murano glass chandeliers still hang in the rooms with their marble floors, but the staircases are rickety and the kitchens are a reminder of the difference between a fashionably distressed interior and one that has been neglected for decades.

Sebastiano Doria, of Views on Venice, the estate agency that is selling the property, throws open the shutters to show the views of the canal. One of Byron’s girlfriends is said to have thrown herself into the water in a fit of pique. But should this and other such tales of 18th-century celebrity culture pall, the nearby Palazzo Grassi, which houses the collection of François-Henri Pinault, head of the PPR conglomerate, offers an excursion into 21st-century installation art.

Anyone who does not wish to become involved in a refurbishment project could acquire a two-floor two-bedroom apartment for €3.4 million, minutes from the Santa Maria della Salute church on the tip of the Dorsoduro and the San Marco, but not on the main tourist itinerary. A terrace runs the whole length of the apartment’s sitting room. As I looked round, I wondered how long it had taken the vendors to concentrate on any other activity than staring out at the comings and goings down the canal.

The apartment’s expensively cosy decor would anywhere else be considered florid, but minimalism looks out of place in Venice. Moreover, the late Peggy Guggenheim’s collection of 20th-century art, a short walk away, should provide an antidote to gilt paint.

Turning your back on the Grand Canal may be difficult, but if this High Renaissance millionaires’ row is beyond your means there are cheaper properties in the backstreets. Here, the entertainment is more the observation of the everyday life of people going to work and contemplation of the carefully choreographed system for the collection of household rubbish.

Views on Venice, an associate of Savills, is also selling two apartments in a 16th-century house on the Campo San Barnaba, a quiet square just a stroll away from the Accademia. The asking price of the three-bedroom piano nobile apartment is €2.2 million, but the two-bedroom top-floor flat is €700,000. Both need only redecoration, not total refurbishment.

The handsome 15th-century San Barnaba church may not be a key Venetian monument, but it did serve as a location in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. If this does not provide a sufficient architectural high, then another two-floor €1.6 million apartment on the other side of the Accademia bridge has views over the Palazzo Franchetti, which is 15th century with 19th-century touches. Two of thethree bedrooms lead off the sitting room on the second floor which, Doria says, is a traditional Venetian arrangement.

Again, the decor is cosy and charming rather than contemporary. But I suspect that the typical CEO sitting in his glass-and-steel tower workplace may secretly pine for such second-home comforts.

From Tuscany to Puglia, find out where’s best to invest in Italy at: timesonline.co.uk/italianproperty

FACTFILE

Italian house prices rose by 5.6 per cent in the first six months of 2007, according to Nomisma, the think-tank. Growth is now slowing.

More flights from the UK have made the British the most numerous overseas buyers of property in Venice.

Details of properties for sale: viewsonvenice.com , savills.co.uk/abroad

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