Venice (Timeless Places)

Rating:
Summary: Venice - Enduring Mystery
Review: VENICE is another in the Timeless Places series written by Alexandra Bonfante-Warren and again she has produced a book that makes us feel as though we are observing her city from the gently rocking gondola, from amid the pigeons in St Mark's Square, and from private tours to the glass-blowing houses deep in the city of canals. Part 1 (Storia) begins with a healthy if succinct history of the sinking city, proceeds through sections entitled 'Il Dogado', 'La Dominante', and 'The Splendid Decline', all preparing us for Part 2 which is images of the city that by rights should not even exist, so anchored to the lagoons and pilings that the sea penetrates regularly. But before the further sinking of the city she introduces through pictures the uniqueness that is Venice. Even for visitors who know the city well, for readers who cling to every novel (and they are legion!) about, set in, or referencing Venice, here is Venice as splendidly protrayed as any travel book. A must for those captivated by the city that knows no time.

Rating:
Summary: Good Historical Overview but That's It
Review: Venice, or la serenissima repubblica di Venezia, is truly a unique city. If you take the night train as I do, you approach it at sunrise and see it shimmering in the distance, rising from the sea like a dream. It is a sight one never quite gets used to no matter how many times he or she sees it. Venice is the only city in the world that truly marries the land to the sea and life to death. Half of the 500 square kilometer lagoon is covered with water all of the time as known as the "laguna viva;" the other half is only sometimes flooded and is known as the "laguna morta," a name that belies its abundant wildlife, however.

In TIMELESS PLACES VENICE, we're give a brief, but good, general overview of the history of this glorious city. We learn that, architecturally, the city should have collapsed long ago, but that it still endures, beautiful and timeless.

We learn that Venice is actually made up of 118 islands connected by 400 bridges, the most famous being the beautiful Rialto.

We learn about the historical center of Venice, occupying 15 square kilometers on either side of the Grand Canal, from the sestiere of Cannaregio in the northwest, to San Polo, Santa Croce and Dorsoduro to the west of the canal and San Marco and Castello to the east. We learn about the lagoon and its islands...tranquil Giudecca, the Isola di San Giorgio, the cemetery island of San Michele, Torcello, once the heart of the republic, Burano, famous for its extravagantly beautiful lace, Murano, equally famous for its gorgeous glassware and the Lido, the beach island, with its plush hotels and fin-di-siecle villas.

Although the population of Venice is approximately 340,000, only about 100,000 live in the historic center. Both Venice's residents, and its jobs, have been migrating to more modern areas on the fringes of the city.

Boats have always been an integral part of Venice and even sanitation services, ambulances, fire fighters, the police and buses and handled by boat. The gondola, once a symbol of Venice to many people, is fading from sight in the city. If you take a trip to Venice now, don't expect to ride in one. If you do find one available, you can expect to pay dearly for it. A fifteen minute ride will cost you about $100, perhaps more. (And the gondolier definitely will not sing!) But, if you can find a gondola and a gondolier who will take you, there is no sight that can compare to the lagoon at sunrise.

Despite the disappearance of gondolas, Venice is still a city of tourists, so much so that one-third of all its employees work in the tourism business. Venice's other "industries" tend to be small and range from high-end jewelry shops to luxury papermaking (Venetian stationery is prized the world over) to neighborhood pasticceria offering a marvelous array of baked goods (anything filled with ricotta is scrumptious).

Three sites are representative of Venice's mystical convergence of power: 1. the Rialto Bridge, which symbolizes the city's commercial prowess; 2. the Piazza San Marco, symbolizing the marriage of power between heaven and the doge; and 3. the Arsenale, the heart of Venice's naval power.

While Venice, more than any other city, is still a city of palazzi, most of them now house museums and other cultural institutions, or, like the Gritti, directly across the Grand Canal from Harry's Bar (frequented by Hemingway and many other famous persons), are luxury hotels. Some of the old, aristocratic families still survive, however, and guests, dressed in elaborate costumes for Carnavale, can be seen entering and exiting the private palazzi. These beautiful palazzi are of many styles...one can see the Oriental lines of the Byzantine, the pretty Gothic, the aristocratic Renaissance, the restrained Baroque and the ornate Neoclassical. It would seem that Venice offers something for just about everyone.

The region of Venice, known as the Veneto, has been inhabited since prehistoric times, by many different peoples. On the island of Torcello, in 697, Venice elected its first doge; today, the pink-hued Doge's Palace is one of the city's main tourist attractions.

In 775, a bishop was first assigned to Venice, and in 829 the glorious Cathedral of San Marco was begun when the doge was honored with a relic of St. Mark, smuggled out of Alexandria in a load of pork.

It was a Venetian, Marco Polo, traveling to the court of Kublai Khan in southern China in 1280, who became the first European to record a sighting of the Pacific Ocean.

During the 1340s, while Venice was flourishing, it was struck, along with much of the rest of Europe, with the Black Plague and, even though Venice has always been a city with more than its share of rats, it still fared better than many of the country villages of Europe that were wiped out entirely. In fact, Venice went on to defeat Genoa in the 1380s. Venice flourished once again. In the late 1500s, however, Venice entered a political and military decline and was eventually absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy.

Venice is a mythical city to most people, whether they have visited it or not. But each person no doubt has his or her own view of what Venice is, or should be. Some people identify it with Carnavale and the Doge's Ball (and if you visit the city, be sure to buy a mask to take home as a souvenir), others with the busy Rialto Bridge, still others with the sinister Bridge of Sighs, over which Casanova, himself, walked on his way to prison. Many people, when thinking of Venice, think only of the Cathedral of San Marco and its beautiful piazza. But Venice is so much more. It's many small neighborhoods, with calli and rii and laundry hanging between one building and another. It's pasticceria and cafes and daily gossip. It's palazzi with small "back doors" leading to gardens, where the inhabitants are sheltered from view from any passersby.

In TIMELESS PLACES VENICE, the author gives us a very good overview of the history of Venice (although space requires that this overview be very short), but she neglects to tell us about the many tourist attractions that Venice offers its visitors. I think some readers will be disappointed by this. I know I was and I've even visited the city many times since I don't live too far away. I think some readers would have been happier with more information and more photos of the Doge's Palace, of St. Mark's, of the Rialto Bridge, of the Bridge of Sighs, but I do understand that the author, especially due to the constraints of space, had to make a choice and history is the choice she made.

Still, this is a very interesting book and it would make a very good "coffee table" book for any home or a lovely gift for anyone contemplating a trip to Venice or even for someone who simply loves "la serenissima repubblica Venezia" as much as I do.