Get your own Free Home Page
The first-time visitor to Venice arrives with a heavy freight of expectations, most of which turn out
to have been well founded. It is an extraordinarily beautiful city, an urban landscape so rich that you
can't walk for a minute without coming across something that's worth a stop; and the major sights
like the basilica and piazza of San Marco are all they are cracked up to be, as are most of the lesser-
known ones. The downside is that Venice is deluged with tourists, the annual influx exceeding the
city's population two-hundredfold; and it is expensive - the price of a good meal anywhere else in
Italy will get you a lousy one in Venice, and its hoteliers make the most of a situation where demand
will always far outstrip supply. However, the crowds thin out beyond the magnetic field of San
Marco, and in the off-season it's still possible to have parts of the centre virtually to yourself. As for
keeping your costs down, there are some inexpensive eating places, and you can find a bed for the
night without spending a fortune.
Venice first rose to a kind of prominence when the traders of what was then a small settlement on
the lagoon signalled their independence from Byzantium through a great symbolic act - the theft from
Alexandria in 828 of the body of St Mark, who became the city's patron. Venice later exploited the
trading networks and markets of Byzantium and the East, aided by the Crusades, by the twelfth
century achieving unprecedented prosperity and benefiting especially from the Sack of
Constantinople in 1204, which left much of the Roman Empire under the city's sway. Following the
defeat of Genoa in 1380, Venice consolidated its position as the unrivalled trading power of the
region, and by the middle of the fifteenth century was in possession of a mainland empire that was to
survive virtually intact for several centuries - although its eastern dominions were increasingly
encroached on by the Ottomans. Decline set in in the eighteenth century, when, politically moribund
and constitutionally ossified, Venice became renowned as a playground of the rich, a position
consolidated in the nineteenth century with the growth of tourism and the development of the Lido
as Europe's most fashionable resort. This turns out to have been a wise move, despite the drawbacks.
Nowadays some twenty million people visit the city each year, around half of whom don't even stay a
night. Without them, however, Venice would barely exist at all.
The main tourist office (daily 9am-1pm & 2-4pm) is in the Casinò da Caffè, on the edge of the
Giardinetti Reali, by the San Marco vaporetto stop; there are desks at the train station, and, in
summer, at Piazzale Roma. Pick up their free map and English-Italian magazine, Un Ospite di
Venezia, which gives up-to-date what's on information and vaporetto timetables.
City transport
In most cases the speediest way of getting around Venice is on foot. Distances between major sights
are short (you can cross the whole city in an hour), and once you've got your general bearings
navigation is not as daunting a prospect as it seems. To get between two points quickly, however, it's
sometimes faster to take a waterbus. Tickets are available from most landing stages and all shops
displaying the ACTV sign. Flat-rate fares are L3500 for any one continuous journey, except for most
one-stop journeys, which cost L2000. Tickets bought on board are subject to a surcharge, and the
spot-fine for not having a valid ticket is L30,000, so it's a good idea to buy a block of ten (un
blochetto) or a tourist ticket: a 24-hour ticket costs L14,000 and a 72-hour costs L20,000.
Timetables are posted at each stop, the tourist office's city map has a route plan, and Un Ospite di
Venezia has details of the important lines. In addition, there are the traghetti that cross the Canale
Grande, which cost L600 a trip and are the only cheap way of getting a ride on a gondola. In
summer they run from early morning to around 7-9pm daily. Otherwise the gondola is an adjunct of
the tourist industry. To hire one costs L80,000 per fifty minutes, L100,000 between 8pm and 8am,
plus L40,000 for each additional 25 minutes - be sure to confirm the charge beforehand.
GONDOLAS
Gondolas may be far less numerous than they used to be (a total of 10,000 operated on the canals of
sixteenth-century Venice) but the tourist industry ensures steady employment for a few squeri, as the
gondola yards are called. A display in the Museo Storico Navale takes you through the construction
of a gondola, but no abstract demonstration can equal the fascination of a working yard, and the
most public one in Venice is the squero di San Trovaso, on the Záttere side of San Trovaso church.
The San Trovaso is the oldest squero still functioning - established in the seventeenth century, it
looks rather like an alpine farmhouse, a reflection of the architecture of the Dolomite villages from
which many of Venice's gondola-builders once came. Another squero is tucked away on the Rio
dell'Avogaria, a short distance west of here, beyond the former Benedictine convent of Ognissanti
(now a hospital).
The earliest mention of a gondola is in a decree of 1094, but the vessel of that period bore little
resemblance to today's streamlined thoroughbred. As late as the thirteenth century the gondola was a
twelve-oared beast with an iron beak - an adornment that evolved into the saw-toothed projection,
called the ferro, which fronts the modern gondola. (The precise significance of the ferro's shape is
unclear - tradition has it that the six main prongs symbolize the six sestieri, with the backward-facing
prong representing La Giudecca.) Over the next two centuries the gondola shrank to something near
its present dimensions, developed multicoloured coverings and sprouted the little chair on carved
legs that it still carries. The gondola's distinctive oarlock, an elaborately convoluted lump of walnut
or cherry wood known as a forcola, which permits the long oar to be used in eight different
positions, reached its definitive form at this time too.
By the sixteenth century the gondola had become a mode of social ostentation, with gilded prows,
fantastically upholstered felzi (cabins), cushions of satin and silk, and hulls decked out with a
profusion of embroidery, carvings and flowers. Sumptuary laws were introduced to quash this
aquatic one-upmanship, and though some of them had little effect, one of them changed the
gondola's appearance for good - since an edict of 1562 gondolas have been uniformly black, a livery
which prompted Shelley to liken them to "moths of which a coffin might have been the chrysalis".
There's been little alteration in the gondola's dimensions and construction since the end of the
seventeenth century: the only significant changes have been adjustments of the gondola's asymmetric
line to compensate for the weight of the gondolier - a characteristic that's particularly noticeable
when you see the things out of water. All gondolas are 10.87 metres long and 1.42 metres wide at
their broadest point, and are assembled from nearly 300 pieces of seasoned mahogany, elm, oak,
lime, walnut, fir, cherry and larch. Each squero turns out only about four new gondolas a year, at a
cost of around twenty million lire; most are destined for the private lakes of foreign millionaires.
CARNEVALE!
John Evelyn wrote of the 1646 Carnevale: "all the world was in Venice to see the folly and madness
. . . the women, men and persons of all conditions disguising themselves in antique dresses, &
extravagant Musique & a thousand gambols." Not much is different in today's Carnevale, for which
people arrive in such numbers that the causeway from the mainland has sometimes had to be closed
because the city has been too packed.
The origins of the Carnevale can be traced in the word itself: carne vale, a "farewell to meat" before
the rigours of Lent - the same origin as the tamer British custom of eating pancakes on Shrove
Tuesday. The medieval European carnival developed into a period when the world could be turned
over - a time of licence for those normally constrained by rank, and a means of quelling discontent by
a ritualized relinquishing of power. Venice's Carnevale can be related to the surrender of power on a
wider scale, as the festival's heyday - the eighteenth century - coincided with the terminal decline of
the Republic. The eighteenth-century Carnevale officially began on December 26, lasting for nearly
two months until Shrove Tuesday; aspects of it, such as the wearing of masks, stretched into the rest
of the year, until Carnevale unofficially continued for six months.
Today's Carnevale is limited to the ten days leading up to Lent, finishing on Shrove Tuesday with a
masked ball for the glitterati, and dancing in the Piazza for the plebs. It was revived in 1979 by a
group of non-Venetians, and soon gained support from the canny city authorities, who now organize
various pageants and performances. (Details from the San Marco tourist office.) Apart from these
events, Carnevale is very much a case of see and be seen. During the day people don costumes and
go down to the Piazza to be photographed; parents dress up their kids; businessmen can be seen
doing their shopping in the classic white mask, black cloak and tricorne hat. In the evening some
congregate in the remoter squares, while those who have spent literally hundreds of pounds on their
costumes install themselves in the windows of Florian's and pose for a while before making an exit
with an adoring entourage. But you don't need to spend money or try to be "traditional" in your
disguise: a simple black outfit and a painted face is enough to transform you from a spectator into a
participant.
Masks are on sale throughout the year in Venice, but new mask and costume shops suddenly appear
during Carnevale, when Campo San Maurizio sprouts a marquee with mask-making demonstrations
and a variety of designs for sale.
THE DOGE
Regarding the doge, it's a common misunderstanding that he was a mere figurehead, confined to his
palace under a sort of luxurious house arrest. It's true that there were numerous restrictions on his
activities - all his letters were read by censors, for example, and he couldn't receive foreign
delegations alone - but these were steps taken to reduce the possibility that an ambitious leader might
exploit his office, and they didn't always succeed. Whereas his colleagues were elected for terms as
brief as a month, the doge was elected for life and sat on all the major councils of state, which at the
very least made him extremely influential in the formation of policy. The dogeship was the monopoly
of old men not solely because of the celebrated Venetian respect for the wisdom of the aged, but also
because a man in his seventies would have fewer opportunities to abuse the unrivalled powers of the
dogeship. So it was that in 1618 a certain Agostino Nani, at 63 the youngest candidate for the
dogeship, feigned a life-threatening decrepitude to enhance his chances of getting the job. A neat
summary of the doge's position was made by Girolamo Priuli, an exact contemporary of Sanudo - "It
is true that if a doge does anything against the Republic, he won't be tolerated; but in everything else,
even in minor matters, he does as he pleases."
The City
The 118 islands of central Venice are divided into six districts known as sestieri. The sestiere of San
Marco is home to the majority of the essential sights, and is accordingly the most expensive and most
crowded district of the city. On the east it's bordered by Castello, on the north by Cannaregio - both
of which become more residential the further you go from the centre. On the other side of the Canal
Grande, the largest of the sestieri is Dorsoduro, which stretches from the fashionable quarter at the
southern tip of the canal to the docks in the west. Santa Croce, named after a now demolished
church, roughly follows the curve of the Canal Grande from Piazzale Roma to a point just short of
the Rialto, where it joins the smartest and commercially most active of the districts on this bank -
San Polo.
San Marco
The section of Venice enclosed by the lower loop of the Canal Grande is, in essence, the Venice of
the travel brochures. The Piazza San Marco is the hub of most activity, signalled from most parts of
the city by the Campanile (daily 9.30am-3.30/7pm; L5000), which began life as a lighthouse in the
ninth century and was modified frequently up to the early sixteenth century. The present structure is
in fact a reconstruction: the original tower collapsed on July 14, 1902. At 99m, it is the tallest
structure in the city, and from the top you can make out virtually every building, but not a single
canal. The other tower in the Piazza, the Torre dell'Orologio, was built between 1496 and 1506,
although the panorama can't compete with the Campanile's and you can watch the Moors at the top
strike the hour perfectly well from the ground; it's also currently closed for restoration. Away to the
left stretches the Procuratie Vecchie, an early sixteenth-century structure that was converted into a
palace by Napoléon, who connected the building with the other side of the piazza - the Procuratie
Nuove - by way of a new wing for dancing. Generally known as the Ala Napoleonica, this short side
of the Piazza is partly occupied by the Museo Correr (Mon & Wed-Sun 10am-5pm; L8000), whose
vast historical collection - coins, weapons, regalia, prints, mediocre paintings - is heavy going unless
you have an intense interest in Venetian history. The Quadreria on the second floor is no rival for the
Accademia's collection, but does set out clearly the evolution of painting in Venice from the
thirteenth century to around 1500, and contains some gems - a Pietà by Cosmé Tura, the
Transfiguration and Dead Christ Supported by Angels by Giovanni Bellini, along with a Carpaccio
picture known as The Courtesans. There's also an appealing exhibition of applied arts, featuring a
print of Jacopo de'Barbari's astonishing aerial view of Venice, engraved in 1500.
The Basilica di San Marco (daily 10am-5pm) is the most exotic of Europe's cathedrals, modelled on
Constantinople's Church of the Twelve Apostles, finished in 1094 and embellished over the
succeeding centuries with trophies brought back from abroad - proof of Venice's secular might and
thus of the spiritual power of St Mark. The Romanesque carvings of the central door were begun
around 1225 and finished in the early fourteenth century, while the mosaic above the doorway on the
far left - The Arrival of the Body of St Mark - was made around 1260 (the only early mosaic left on
the main facade) and includes the oldest known image of the basilica. Inside, the narthex holds more
mosaics, Old Testament scenes on the domes and arches, together with The Madonna with Apostles
and Evangelists in the niches of the bay in front of the main door - dating from the 1060s, the oldest
mosaics in San Marco. A steep staircase goes from the church's main door up to the Museo
Marciano and the Loggia dei Cavalli (daily 9am-4.30pm; L3000), where you can enjoy fine views of
the city and the Gothic carvings along the apex of the facade, as well as the horses in question,
replicas of Roman works thieved from the Hippodrome of Constantinople (the genuine articles are
inside). Downstairs, beyond the narthex, the interior proper is covered with more mosaics, most
dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, although the Sanctuary, off the south transept
(Mon-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 2-4.30pm; L3000), holds the most precious of San Marco's treasures,
the Pala d'Oro or golden altar panel, commissioned in 976 in Constantinople and studded with
precious stones. The Treasury (same times; L3000) nearby is a similarly dazzling warehouse of
chalices, reliquaries and candelabra, a fair proportion pillaged from Constantinople in 1204. Look
too at the Baptistery, altered to its present form by the fourteenth-century Doge Andrea Dandolo,
whose tomb (facing the door) was thought by Ruskin to have the best monumental sculpture in the
city. Back in the main body of the church, there's still more to see on the lower levels of the building.
Don't overlook the rood screen's marble figures of The Virgin, St Mark and the Apostles, carved in
1394 by the dominant sculptors in Venice at that time, Jacobello and Pietro Paolo Dalle Masegne.
The pulpits on each side of the screen were assembled in the early fourteenth century from
miscellaneous panels, some from Constantinople; the new doge was presented to the people from the
right-hand one. The tenth-century Icon of the Madonna of Nicopeia (in the chapel on the east side of
the north transept) is the most revered religious image in Venice, and was one of the most revered in
Constantinople.
The adjacent Palazzo Ducale (April to mid-Oct daily 9am-7pm; mid-Oct to March daily 9am-4pm;
L10,000) was the residence of the doge, as well as housing Venice's governing councils, courts, a
sizeable number of its civil servants and even its prisons. Like San Marco, the Palazzo Ducale has
been rebuilt many times since its foundation in the first years of the ninth century, but the earliest
parts of the current structure date from 1340. The principal entrance, the Porta della Carta, is one of
the most ornate Gothic works in the city, commissioned in 1438 by Doge Francesco Fóscari; the
figures of Fóscari and his lion are replicas - the originals were pulverized in 1797 by the head of the
stonemasons' guild, as a favour to Napoléon. The passage inside ends under the Arco Fóscari, also
commissioned by Doge Fóscari but finished a few years after his death. Parts of the Palazzo Ducale
can be marched through fairly briskly, its walls covered with acres of wearisome canvas, although
you should linger in the Anticollegio, one of the palace's finest rooms and home to four pictures by
Tintoretto and Veronese's characteristically benign Rape of Europa. The cycle of paintings on the
ceiling of the adjoining Sala del Collegio is also by Veronese, and he features strongly again in the
most stupendous room in the building - the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, where his ceiling panel of
the Apotheosis of Venice is suspended over the dais from which the doge oversaw the sessions of
the city assembly. The backdrop is the immense Paradiso painted at the end of his life by Tintoretto,
with the aid of his son, Domenico. From here you descend quickly to the underbelly of the Venetian
state, crossing the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) to the prisons, and then back over to the water
to the Pozzi, the cells for the most hardened malefactors.
Facing the Palazzo Ducale across the Piazzetta is Sansovino's masterpiece and the most consistently
admired Renaissance building in the city - the Libreria Sansoviniana, part of which is given over to
the Museo Archeologico (daily 9am-2pm; L4000), a collection of Greek and Roman sculpture that's
best left for a rainy day.
Dorsoduro
Some of the finest architecture in Venice is in the sestiere of Dorsoduro, yet for all its attractions,
not many visitors wander off the strip that runs between the main sights of the area, the first of
which, the Galleria dell'Accademia (Mon & Sun 9am-2pm, Tues-Sat 9am-7pm; L12,000), is one of
the finest specialist collections of European art, following the history of Venetian painting from the
fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Housed in the church of Santa Maria della Carità and the
incomplete Convento dei Canonici Lateranensi, partly built by Palladio in 1561, the gallery is laid out
in roughly chronological order. The early sections include paintings by Paolo Veneziano, Carpaccio's
strange and gruesome Crucifixion and Glorification of the Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat,
an exquisite St George by Mantegna, a series of Giovanni Bellini Madonnas, and one of the most
mysterious of Italian paintings, Giorgione's Tempest. Tintoretto weighs in with three typically
energetic pieces illustrating the legend of St Mark, and an entire wall is filled by Paolo Veronese's
Christ in the House of Levi - called The Last Supper until the authorities objected to its lack of
reverence. Among the most impressive pieces in the Accademia is the magnificent cycle of pictures
painted around 1500 for the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, of which Carpaccio's Cure of a
Lunatic and Gentile Bellini's Recovery of the Relic from the Canale di San Lorenzo and Procession
of the Relic in the Piazza stand out. There's also a cycle of pictures by Carpaccio illustrating the
Story of Saint Ursula, painted for the Scuola di Sant'Orsola at San Zanipolo, which is one of the
most unforgettable groups in the entire country. Finally, in room 24 there's Titian's Presentation of
the Virgin, painted for the place where it hangs.
Five minutes' walk from the Accademia is the unfinished Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, home of the
Guggenheim Collection (Mon & Wed-Sun 11am-6pm; L10,000), and of Peggy Guggenheim for
thirty years until her death in 1979. Her private collection is an eclectic choice of (mainly) excellent
pieces from her favourite modernist movements and artists, including works by Brancusi, De Chirico,
Max Ernst and Malevich. Continuing along the line of the Canal Grande, the church of Santa Maria
della Salute, better known simply as the Salute, was built to fulfil a Senate decree of 1630 that a new
church be dedicated to Mary if the city were delivered from plague. Every November 21 there's still
a procession from San Marco to the church, over a specially constructed pontoon bridge, to give
thanks for the city's good health, a major event on the Venetian calendar. In 1656, a hoard of Titian
paintings were moved here and are now housed in the sacristy (L2000), most prominent of which is
the altarpiece of St Mark Enthroned with Sts Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Rocco. The Marriage
at Cana, with its dramatic lighting and perspective, is by Tintoretto, featuring portraits of a number
of the artist's friends.
On the other side of Dorsoduro, the church of San Sebastiano, up by the Stazione Marittima, was
built between 1505 and 1545, and was the parish church of Paolo Veronese, who provided most of
its paintings and is buried here. From here it's a straightforward walk back towards the Canal Grande
along Calle Avogaria and Calle Lunga San Barnaba, a route that deposits you in Campo San
Barnaba, just yards from the Ca' Rezzonico - now the Museo del Settecento Veneziano (9am-7pm;
closed Fri; L8000), full of eighteenth-century Venetian applied arts and paintings in a building
furnished like a wealthy house of the time. Among the paintings are Pietro Longhi's affectionate
illustrations of Venetian social life and frescoes of clowns and carnival scenes painted towards the
end of his life by Giandomenico Tiepolo.
San Polo
North of Dorsoduro is the sestiere of San Polo, on the northeastern edge of which the Rialto district
was in former times the commercial zone of the city, home to the main Venetian banks and maritime
businesses. It's the venue of the Rialto market on the far side of the Rialto Bridge, a lively affair and
one of the few places in the city where it's possible to hear nothing but Italian spoken. The main
reason people visit San Polo, however, is to see the mountainous brick church of the Frari west of
here (Mon-Sat 9.30am-noon & 2.30-6pm, Sun 3-5.30pm; L1000, free Sun), whose collection of
artworks includes a rare couple of paintings by Titian - his Assumption, painted in 1518, is a swirling
piece of compositional bravura for which there was no precedent in Venetian art. Look also at the
Renaissance tombs of the doges flanking the Assumption, dating from the late fifteenth century; the
wooden St John the Baptist, in the chapel to the right, commissioned from Donatello in 1438; and,
on the altar of the sacristy, a marvellous Madonna and Child with Saints by Giovanni Bellini. Titian is
buried in the church, the spot marked by a bombastic nineteenth-century monument, opposite which
the equally pompous mausoleum of Canova was erected by pupils of the sculptor, following a design
he himself had made for the tomb of Titian.
At the rear of the Frari is another place you should on no account miss, the Scuola Grande di San
Rocco (summer daily 9.30am-5.30pm; winter 10am-1pm; L8000), a sixteenth-century building that
is home to a cycle of more than fifty major paintings by Tintoretto. These fall into three main groups.
The first, painted in 1564, adorns the upper Sala dell'Albergo - a Glorification of St Roch, painted
for a competition, and a stupendous Crucifixion, which Ruskin claimed to be "above all praise". In
the building's main hall, Tintoretto covered three large panels of the ceiling with Old Testament
references to the alleviation of physical suffering - coded declarations of the Scuola's charitable
activities - while around the walls are New Testament themes, an amazing feat of sustained
inventiveness, in which every convention of perspective, lighting, colour and even anatomy is defied.
The paintings on the ground floor were created between 1583 and 1587, when Tintoretto was in his
late sixties, and include a turbulent Annunciation, a marvellous Renaissance landscape in The Flight
into Egypt and two small paintings of St Mary Magdalene and St Mary of Egypt.
Cannaregio
In the northernmost section of Venice, Cannaregio, you can go from one extreme to another in a
matter of minutes: it is a short distance from the bustle of the train station to areas which are among
the quietest and prettiest parts of the whole city. The district also has the dubious distinction of
containing the world's first Ghetto: in 1516, all the city's Jews were ordered to move to the island of
the Ghetto Nuovo, an enclave which was sealed at night by Christian curfew guards and even now
looks quite different from the rest of Venice, many of its buildings relatively high-rise due to the
restrictions that were put on the growth of the area. A couple of the oldest synagogues - the Scola
Levantina, founded in 1538, and the Scola Spagnola, founded twenty years later - are still in use and
can be viewed on an informative and multilingual guided tour that leaves on the half-hour, organized
by the Jewish Museum in Campo Ghetto Nuovo (Mon-Fri & Sun 10am-4pm; L4000, with tour
L10,000), where you can also see a collection of silverware and embroidered and other fabric
objects.
The area northeast of the Ghetto is one of the most restful parts of Venice, crossed by long straight
canals and dotted with food shops, bars and trattorias. In the far eastern corner, the Gothic church of
Madonna dell'Orto (summer daily 9am-noon & 3-7pm; winter closes 5pm) was renamed after a stone
Madonna by Giovanni de'Santi, found discarded in a local vegetable garden, that began to work
miracles. Brought inside the church in 1377, the heavily restored figure can still be seen in the
Cappella di San Mauro. Also inside is the tomb of Tintoretto, in the chapel to the right of the high
altar, along with those of his son and daughter, Domenico and Marietta, and a number of paintings
by the artist, notably the colossal Making of the Golden Calf and The Last Judgement, which flank
the main altar, plus quite a few other notable works.
Get your own Free Home Page