Caffè Florian, the world’s oldest Caffe, celebrates its 300th anniversary. The landmark Venetian bar, nestled amid the arcades of the central Piazza S. Marco, has been serving locals and visitors to the lagoon city for 3 centuries.

Opened on 29 December 1720, Alla Venezia Trionfante – as it was called originally – was launched by Floriano Francesconi, after whom it was soon renamed. Caffè Florian has been in business ever since. Over the centuries this elegant bar has welcomed countless cultural figures such as Casanova, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Charlie Chaplin, and Andy Warhol, as well hundreds of international politicians and modern-day celebrities. Caffè Florian’s richly decorated rooms feature artwork by important 19th-century artists such as Goldoni, while the bar celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1920 by opening a new room adorned in the art nouveau style.

The second-oldest coffee house in Italy is Rome’s Caffè Greco which was founded in 1760, forty years after Caffè Florian.