A price tag of €14million - or £11million - is a lot even for one of the most magnificent apartments on the Grand Canal in Venice. Not least because you will need to spend a further €3 million on museum-standard restoration of gorgeous plasterwork and frescoes, as well as rewiring and plumbing, a task that is likely to take three years.

This work is to be done by the engaging Toto Bergamo Rossi, one of Europe's leading art restorers. The present owner, who bought the palazzo in the 1990s and restored the façades, recently decided to concentrate his energies on restoring a beautiful villa near Asolo. Unusually, he has entrusted Rossi with the task of finding a buyer too.

You will acquire major works of art by notable Venetian painters, Piazzetta, Balestra, Liberi, and Sebastiano Ricci. One of Ricci's largest and most famous works, The Rape of the Sabine Women, fills a wall in the ballroom. The hitch is that though you can lie back on the sofa, sip champagne and show them off to your astonished guests at concerts and elegant soirées, they cannot be sold, except with the building.

Like many grand Venetian palaces, the Palazzo Barbaro is approached discreetly along an alley, here opening off a piazza by the Accademia Bridge. It is magic from the moment you enter, a Romeo and Juliet courtyard with colonnaded loggia and outdoor staircase ascending to the piano nobile, the floor for entertaining.

It was built for the illustrious Barbaro family, who earlier commissioned Palladio and Veronese to build and decorate the famous Villa Maser. The likelihood is that you will be at least as intrigued by the palazzo's more recent history. The Barbaro became the focus of glamorous American life when it was bought in 1885 by Ariana and Daniel Curtis. Guests included John Singer Sargent and Henry James. James included a description of the ballroom in his novel The Wings of a Dove (it also appeared in the film) and he finished The Aspern Papers here.

Today it's all dust sheets and cobwebs, but walking around you have an intense thrill of discovery as Rossi throws open shutters to reveal views of the Grand Canal. This is a Venetian apartment with the decorative richness of the greatest palaces such as the Albrizzi and Rezzonico. The stucco decoration is by Abbondio Stazio, as much a master of lively detail as Grinling Gibbons.

The characteristic Venetian long gallery or portego looks on to the Grand Canal at one end and the courtyard at the other. Paintings are set in powerful stucco frames and the sumptuous effect is increased by lustrous mosaic and terrazzo floors and richly panelled doors. When the windows are open the intense sunlight is reflected on to the ceilings from the water below. Another atmospheric mood is created by the characteristic 17th-century circular leaded lights in the windows.

Much of the stucco is grey from the smoke of fires and cigarettes but Rossi has opened up trial areas showing the crisp white marble detail that emerges as it is cleaned. Not an inch of wall is without decoration - even the dado above the skirting is filled with huge scrolls of acanthus weaving through coronets.

Next door the ballroom, also overlooking the Grand Canal, has lively stucco with winged putti playing on top of the picture frames and weaving through the giant palm fronds on the ceilings. Eagles, fruit and flowers are picked out in gold.

With bedrooms you are spoilt for choice, one on the Grand Canal, others looking out over the lushly planted courtyard or along a quiet side canal. Best of all, the small mezzanine apartment is ready to move into. Tea at Florians and cocktails at Harry's Bar await.

Fast facts

What you get: The main apartment on the first floor, or piano nobile. It needs lots of restoration, although the small mezzanine flat of 80 sq m has already been restored.

Where it is: On the Grand Canal, close to the Accademia Bridge.

Area: 1,000sqm Price: €14 million

Contact: Toto Bergamo Rossi; 0039.335. 6640833 or email: totobergamorossi@libero.it

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