Monday 19 May 2008
Some places selling nice Venice things-
http://www.artofvenice.com/ ..........Some nice glass ware from the city.Very colourful.
http://www.boglewood.com/murano/ ........inspirational.
www.boglewood.com/murano/ ...................colours to please.
crimeajewel .............inexpensive pearl items for the festival.
www.venicemaskshop.com/.................wonderful masks.
http://www.boglewood.com/murano/ ........inspirational.
www.boglewood.com/murano/ ...................colours to please.
crimeajewel .............inexpensive pearl items for the festival.
www.venicemaskshop.com/.................wonderful masks.
The Rialto Bridge
The Rialto Bridge ( Ponte di Rialto) is one of the three bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice and is the oldest bridge across the canal and probably the most famous in the city.
The first dry crossing of the Grand Canal was a pontoon bridge built in 1181 by Nicolò Barattieri. It was called the Ponte della Moneta, presumably because of the mint that stood near its eastern entrance.
The development and importance of the Rialto market on the eastern bank increased traffic on the floating bridge. So it was replaced around 1250 by a wooden bridge. This structure had two inclined ramps meeting at a movable central section, that could be raised to allow the passage of tall ships. The connection with the market eventually led to a change of name for the bridge. During the first half of the 15th century two rows of shops were built along the sides of the bridge. The rents brought an income to the State Treasury, which helped maintain the bridge.
Maintenance was vital for the timber bridge. It was partly burnt in the revolt led by Bajamonte Tiepolo in 1310. In 1444 it collapsed under the weight of a crowd watching a boat parade and it collapsed again in 1524.
The idea of rebuilding the bridge in stone was first proposed in 1503, and several projects were considered over the following decades. The Venetian Senate appointed three noble provveditori to oversee a design competition for the rebuilding of the bridge, which included Jacopo Foscarini, Alvise Zorzi, and Marcantonio Barbaro of the noble Barbaro family. In 1551 the provveditori requested proposals for the renewal of the Rialto Bridge, and plans were offered by famous architects such as Jacopo Sansovino, Palladio and Vignola, all of which involved a Classical approach with several arches, officially judged inappropriate to the situation. Even Michelangelo was considered to design the bridge.
The present stone bridge, a single span, was designed by Antonio da Ponte, and completed in 1591. It is remarkably similar to the wooden bridge it succeeded. Two inclined ramps lead up to a central portico. On either side of the portico the covered ramps carry rows of shops. The engineering of the bridge was considered so audacious that architect Vincenzo Scamozzi predicted future ruin. The bridge has defied its critics to become one of the architectural icons of Venice.
The development and importance of the Rialto market on the eastern bank increased traffic on the floating bridge. So it was replaced around 1250 by a wooden bridge. This structure had two inclined ramps meeting at a movable central section, that could be raised to allow the passage of tall ships. The connection with the market eventually led to a change of name for the bridge. During the first half of the 15th century two rows of shops were built along the sides of the bridge. The rents brought an income to the State Treasury, which helped maintain the bridge.
Maintenance was vital for the timber bridge. It was partly burnt in the revolt led by Bajamonte Tiepolo in 1310. In 1444 it collapsed under the weight of a crowd watching a boat parade and it collapsed again in 1524.
The idea of rebuilding the bridge in stone was first proposed in 1503, and several projects were considered over the following decades. The Venetian Senate appointed three noble provveditori to oversee a design competition for the rebuilding of the bridge, which included Jacopo Foscarini, Alvise Zorzi, and Marcantonio Barbaro of the noble Barbaro family. In 1551 the provveditori requested proposals for the renewal of the Rialto Bridge, and plans were offered by famous architects such as Jacopo Sansovino, Palladio and Vignola, all of which involved a Classical approach with several arches, officially judged inappropriate to the situation. Even Michelangelo was considered to design the bridge.
The present stone bridge, a single span, was designed by Antonio da Ponte, and completed in 1591. It is remarkably similar to the wooden bridge it succeeded. Two inclined ramps lead up to a central portico. On either side of the portico the covered ramps carry rows of shops. The engineering of the bridge was considered so audacious that architect Vincenzo Scamozzi predicted future ruin. The bridge has defied its critics to become one of the architectural icons of Venice.
Santa Maria della Salute
The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (Basilica of St Mary of Health/Salvation), commonly known simply as the Salute, is a famous church in Venice, placed scenically at a narrow finger of land which lies between the Grand Canal and the Bacino di San Marco on the lagoon, visible as one enters the Piazza San Marco from the water. While it has the status of a minor basilica, its decorative and distinctive profile and location make it among the most photographed churches in Italy
Starting in the Summer of 1629, a wave of the plague assaulted Venice, and over the next two years killed nearly a third of the population. Repeated displays of the sacrament, as well as prayers and processions to churches dedicated to San Rocco and San Lorenzo Giustiniani, had failed to stall the continuation of the epidemic. Echoing the architectural response to a prior assault of the plague (1575–76), when Palladio was asked to design the picturesque il Redentore dedicated to Christ the Redeemer, the Venetian Senate in October 22, 1630, decreed that a new church would be built. It was not to be dedicated to a mere "plague" or patron saint, but to the Virgin Mary, who for many reasons was thought to be a protector of the Republic.
It was also decided that the Senate would visit the church yearly, on 21 November, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, in a celebration known as the Festa della Madonna della Salute, where the city's officials parade from San Marco to the Salute in the sestieri Dorsoduro for a service in gratitude for deliverance from the plague. This involved crossing the Grand Canal on a specially constructed pontoon bridge and is still a major event in Venice.
The desire to create a suitable monument at a place that allows for an easy processional access from Piazza San Marco, led senators to select the present site from among 8 potential locations. The Salute, emblematic of the city's piety, stands adjacent to the rusticated single story customs house or Dogana da Mar, the emblem of its maritime commerce, and near the civic center of the city. A dispute with the patriarch, Rome's representative in Venice and owner of the church and seminary at the site, was overcome, and razing of some of the buildings began by 1631. Likely, the diplomat Sarpi and Doge Nicolo Contarini shared the intent to link church to an order less-associated with the Papacy, and ultimately the Somascan Fathers, an order founded near Bergamo by a Venetian noble, were chosen.
A competition was held to select the building. Of the eleven submission (including designs by Alessandro Varotari, Matteo Ignoli, and Berteo Belli), only two were chosen for the final round. The architect Baldassare Longhena was selected to design the new church. It was finally completed in 1681, the year before Longhena's death. The other competitive, but losing, design was by Antonio Smeraldi (il Fracao) and Zambattista Rubertini. Of the proposals still extant, Belli's and Smeraldi's original plans were a conventional counter-reformation linear churches, resembling Palladio's Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore; while Varotari's was a sketchy geometrical abstraction. Longhena's proposal was a concrete architectural plan, detailing the structure and costs, although also bold in design, he wrote:
"I have created a church in the form of a rotunda, a work of new invention, not built in Venice, a work very worthy and desired by many. This church, having the mystery of its dedication, being dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, made me think, with what little talent God has bestowed upon me of building the church in the … shape of a crown."
Later in a memorandum, he wrote:
"Firstly, it is a virgin work, never before seen, curious, worthy and beautiful, made in the form of a round monument that has never been seen, nor ever before invented, neither altogether, nor in part, in other churches in this most serene city, just as my competitor (il Fracao) has done for his own advantage, being poor in invention"
Ultimately the Salute, while novel in many ways, still breathes the influence of Palladian classicism and the domes in Venice. The Venetian Senate voted 66 in favor, 29 against with 2 abstentions to authorize the designs of the 26 year old Longhena.
The Salute is a vast, octagonal building built on a platform made of 100,000 wooden piles. It is constructed of Istrian stone and marmorino (brick covered with marble dust). While its external decoration and location capture the eye, the internal design itself is quite remarkable. The octagonal church, while ringed by a classic vocabulary, hearkens to Byzantine designs such as the Basilica of San Vitale. The interior has its architectural elements demarcated by the coloration of the material, and the central nave with its ring of saints atop a balustrade is a novel design. It is full of Marian symbolism – the great dome represents her crown, the cavernous interior her womb, the eight sides the eight points on her symbolic star.
Ultimately, the dome of the Salute was one of the main additions to the Venice skyline, and became emblematic of the city, just as the domes of the Cathedral in Florence and St.Peter's in Rome were for their respective cities; however, unlike those massive major churches, the Salute is not meant to caparison the populace. It is a pilgrimage church inside a city, it is the church that blessed the riches entering the port by commerce. While Longhena, saw the structure like a crown, the decorative circular building makes it seem more like a reliquary, a cyborium, and embroidered inverted chalice that shelters the city's piety.
The Salute is part of the parish of the Gesuati.
The Baroque high altar arrangement, designed by Longhena himself, shelters an iconic Byzantine Madonna and Child of the 12th or 13th century. The theatric statuary at the high altar, depicting the queen of heaven expelling the Plague(1670) was a theatrical Baroque masterpiece by the Flemish sculptor Josse de Corte. It originally held Alessandro Varotari's painting of the Virgin holding a church, that the painter submitted with his architectural proposal.
Tintoretto contributed Marriage at Cana in the great sacristy, which includes a self-portrait. The most represented artist included in the church is Titian, who painted St Mark enthroned with saints Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Roch, the altarpiece of the sacristy, as well as ceiling paintings of David and Goliath, Abraham and Isaac and Cain and Abel, and eight tondi of the Doctors of the Church and the Evangelists, all in the great sacristy, and Pentecost in the nave.
It was also decided that the Senate would visit the church yearly, on 21 November, the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, in a celebration known as the Festa della Madonna della Salute, where the city's officials parade from San Marco to the Salute in the sestieri Dorsoduro for a service in gratitude for deliverance from the plague. This involved crossing the Grand Canal on a specially constructed pontoon bridge and is still a major event in Venice.
The desire to create a suitable monument at a place that allows for an easy processional access from Piazza San Marco, led senators to select the present site from among 8 potential locations. The Salute, emblematic of the city's piety, stands adjacent to the rusticated single story customs house or Dogana da Mar, the emblem of its maritime commerce, and near the civic center of the city. A dispute with the patriarch, Rome's representative in Venice and owner of the church and seminary at the site, was overcome, and razing of some of the buildings began by 1631. Likely, the diplomat Sarpi and Doge Nicolo Contarini shared the intent to link church to an order less-associated with the Papacy, and ultimately the Somascan Fathers, an order founded near Bergamo by a Venetian noble, were chosen.
A competition was held to select the building. Of the eleven submission (including designs by Alessandro Varotari, Matteo Ignoli, and Berteo Belli), only two were chosen for the final round. The architect Baldassare Longhena was selected to design the new church. It was finally completed in 1681, the year before Longhena's death. The other competitive, but losing, design was by Antonio Smeraldi (il Fracao) and Zambattista Rubertini. Of the proposals still extant, Belli's and Smeraldi's original plans were a conventional counter-reformation linear churches, resembling Palladio's Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore; while Varotari's was a sketchy geometrical abstraction. Longhena's proposal was a concrete architectural plan, detailing the structure and costs, although also bold in design, he wrote:
"I have created a church in the form of a rotunda, a work of new invention, not built in Venice, a work very worthy and desired by many. This church, having the mystery of its dedication, being dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, made me think, with what little talent God has bestowed upon me of building the church in the … shape of a crown."
Later in a memorandum, he wrote:
"Firstly, it is a virgin work, never before seen, curious, worthy and beautiful, made in the form of a round monument that has never been seen, nor ever before invented, neither altogether, nor in part, in other churches in this most serene city, just as my competitor (il Fracao) has done for his own advantage, being poor in invention"
Ultimately the Salute, while novel in many ways, still breathes the influence of Palladian classicism and the domes in Venice. The Venetian Senate voted 66 in favor, 29 against with 2 abstentions to authorize the designs of the 26 year old Longhena.
The Salute is a vast, octagonal building built on a platform made of 100,000 wooden piles. It is constructed of Istrian stone and marmorino (brick covered with marble dust). While its external decoration and location capture the eye, the internal design itself is quite remarkable. The octagonal church, while ringed by a classic vocabulary, hearkens to Byzantine designs such as the Basilica of San Vitale. The interior has its architectural elements demarcated by the coloration of the material, and the central nave with its ring of saints atop a balustrade is a novel design. It is full of Marian symbolism – the great dome represents her crown, the cavernous interior her womb, the eight sides the eight points on her symbolic star.
Ultimately, the dome of the Salute was one of the main additions to the Venice skyline, and became emblematic of the city, just as the domes of the Cathedral in Florence and St.Peter's in Rome were for their respective cities; however, unlike those massive major churches, the Salute is not meant to caparison the populace. It is a pilgrimage church inside a city, it is the church that blessed the riches entering the port by commerce. While Longhena, saw the structure like a crown, the decorative circular building makes it seem more like a reliquary, a cyborium, and embroidered inverted chalice that shelters the city's piety.
The Salute is part of the parish of the Gesuati.
The Baroque high altar arrangement, designed by Longhena himself, shelters an iconic Byzantine Madonna and Child of the 12th or 13th century. The theatric statuary at the high altar, depicting the queen of heaven expelling the Plague(1670) was a theatrical Baroque masterpiece by the Flemish sculptor Josse de Corte. It originally held Alessandro Varotari's painting of the Virgin holding a church, that the painter submitted with his architectural proposal.
Tintoretto contributed Marriage at Cana in the great sacristy, which includes a self-portrait. The most represented artist included in the church is Titian, who painted St Mark enthroned with saints Cosmas, Damian, Sebastian and Roch, the altarpiece of the sacristy, as well as ceiling paintings of David and Goliath, Abraham and Isaac and Cain and Abel, and eight tondi of the Doctors of the Church and the Evangelists, all in the great sacristy, and Pentecost in the nave.
Venice's majestic Theatre- La Fenice
In 1774, the San Benedetto Theatre, which had been Venice's leading opera house for more than forty years, burned to the ground. No sooner had it been rebuilt than a legal dispute broke out between the company managing it and the owners, the Venier family. The issue was decided in favor of the Veniers. As a result, the theatre company decided to build a new opera house of its own on the Campo San Fantin.
The construction began in June 1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was completed. It was named "La Fenice", in reference to the company's survival, first of the fire, then of the loss of its former quarters. La Fenice was inaugurated on May 16, 1792 with an opera by Giovanni Paisiello entitled I Giochi di Agrigento.
From the beginning of the 19th century, La Fenice acquired a European reputation. Rossini mounted two major productions in the theatre and Bellini had two operas premiered there. Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs in Milan and Naples, returned to Venice in 1836, after an absence of seventeen years.
In December 1836, disaster struck again when the theatre was destroyed by fire. However, it was quickly rebuilt with a design provided by the architect-engineer team of the brothers, Tommaso Meduna and Giambattista Meduna La Fenice once again rose from its ashes to open its doors on the evening of December 26, 1837.
Giuseppe Verdi's association with La Fenice began in 1844, with a performance of Ernani during the Carnival season. Over the next thirteen years, the premieres of Attila, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Simon Boccanegra took place there.
During the First World War, La Fenice was closed, but reopened to again become the scene of much activity, attracting many of the world's greatest singers and conductors. In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice.
On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire. Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians guilty of setting the fire. Enrico Carella and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work. Carella, the company's owner, was sent to prison for seven years, while Marchetti received a six-year sentence.
After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two hundred plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsman succeeded in recreating the ambience of the old theatre at a cost of some €90 million.
La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi and using still photographs from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's 1954 film Senso which was filmed in the house in order to obtain details of its design. It reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first opera production was La Traviata in November, 2004. Critical response to the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The music critic of the rightwing paper Il Tempo, Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He found the colours a bit bright but the sound good and compact. For his colleague Dino Villatico of the leftwing La Repubblica, however, the acoustics of the new hall lacked resonance and the colours were painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a fake imitation of the past". He said that "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it". However, for many Venetians, a painful wound in the historical, much-admired cityscape has been healed.
The construction began in June 1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was completed. It was named "La Fenice", in reference to the company's survival, first of the fire, then of the loss of its former quarters. La Fenice was inaugurated on May 16, 1792 with an opera by Giovanni Paisiello entitled I Giochi di Agrigento.
From the beginning of the 19th century, La Fenice acquired a European reputation. Rossini mounted two major productions in the theatre and Bellini had two operas premiered there. Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs in Milan and Naples, returned to Venice in 1836, after an absence of seventeen years.
In December 1836, disaster struck again when the theatre was destroyed by fire. However, it was quickly rebuilt with a design provided by the architect-engineer team of the brothers, Tommaso Meduna and Giambattista Meduna La Fenice once again rose from its ashes to open its doors on the evening of December 26, 1837.
Giuseppe Verdi's association with La Fenice began in 1844, with a performance of Ernani during the Carnival season. Over the next thirteen years, the premieres of Attila, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Simon Boccanegra took place there.
During the First World War, La Fenice was closed, but reopened to again become the scene of much activity, attracting many of the world's greatest singers and conductors. In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice.
On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire. Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians guilty of setting the fire. Enrico Carella and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work. Carella, the company's owner, was sent to prison for seven years, while Marchetti received a six-year sentence.
After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two hundred plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsman succeeded in recreating the ambience of the old theatre at a cost of some €90 million.
La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi and using still photographs from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's 1954 film Senso which was filmed in the house in order to obtain details of its design. It reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first opera production was La Traviata in November, 2004. Critical response to the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The music critic of the rightwing paper Il Tempo, Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He found the colours a bit bright but the sound good and compact. For his colleague Dino Villatico of the leftwing La Repubblica, however, the acoustics of the new hall lacked resonance and the colours were painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a fake imitation of the past". He said that "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it". However, for many Venetians, a painful wound in the historical, much-admired cityscape has been healed.
The Venice Arsenal.
The Venetian Arsenal (Italian: Arsenale di Venezia) is a shipyard and naval depot that played a leading role in Venetian empire-building. It was one of the most important areas of Venice, lying in the Castello sestiere.
The Byzantine-style establishment may have existed as early as the 8th century, though the present structure is usually said to have been begun in 1104 during the reign of Ordelafo Faliero, although there is no evidence for such a precise date. It definitely existed by the early thirteenth century and is mentioned in Dante's Inferno. The name probably comes from Arabic Dar al Sina’a ("Dockyard") and the concept was clearly Islamic as much as Byzantine.
Initially the state dockyard worked merely to maintain naval ships built privately, but in 1320 the Arsenal Nuovo was built, much larger than the original. It enabled all the state's navy and the larger merchant ships to be both constructed and maintained in one place. The Arsenal incidentally became an important centre for rope manufacture, while housing for the arsenal workers grew up outside its walls.
Venice developed methods of mass-producing warships in the Arsenal, including the frame-first system to replace the Roman hull-first practice. The new system was much faster and required less wood. At the peak of its efficiency in the early 16th century, the Arsenal employed some 16,000 people who apparently were able to produce nearly one ship each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly-built galley with standardized parts on a production-line basis not seen again until the Industrial Revolution.
The staff of the Arsenal also developed new firearms at an early date, beginning with bombards in the 1370s and numerous small arms against the Genoese a few years later. Improvements in handguns led to their muzzle velocity (and therefore their ability to penetrate armor) exceeding that of the crossbow. The Venetian condottieri leader, Bartolomeo Colleoni, is usually given credit as being the first to mount the Arsenal's new lighter-weight artillery on mobile carriages for field use.
The Byzantine-style establishment may have existed as early as the 8th century, though the present structure is usually said to have been begun in 1104 during the reign of Ordelafo Faliero, although there is no evidence for such a precise date. It definitely existed by the early thirteenth century and is mentioned in Dante's Inferno. The name probably comes from Arabic Dar al Sina’a ("Dockyard") and the concept was clearly Islamic as much as Byzantine.
Initially the state dockyard worked merely to maintain naval ships built privately, but in 1320 the Arsenal Nuovo was built, much larger than the original. It enabled all the state's navy and the larger merchant ships to be both constructed and maintained in one place. The Arsenal incidentally became an important centre for rope manufacture, while housing for the arsenal workers grew up outside its walls.
Venice developed methods of mass-producing warships in the Arsenal, including the frame-first system to replace the Roman hull-first practice. The new system was much faster and required less wood. At the peak of its efficiency in the early 16th century, the Arsenal employed some 16,000 people who apparently were able to produce nearly one ship each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly-built galley with standardized parts on a production-line basis not seen again until the Industrial Revolution.
The staff of the Arsenal also developed new firearms at an early date, beginning with bombards in the 1370s and numerous small arms against the Genoese a few years later. Improvements in handguns led to their muzzle velocity (and therefore their ability to penetrate armor) exceeding that of the crossbow. The Venetian condottieri leader, Bartolomeo Colleoni, is usually given credit as being the first to mount the Arsenal's new lighter-weight artillery on mobile carriages for field use.
The Arsenal's main gate, the Porta Magna, was built in about 1460 and was the first Classical revival structure to be built in Venice. It was perhaps built by Antonio Gambello from a design by Jacopo Bellini. Two lions taken from Greece situated beside it were added in 1687. One of the lions, known as the Piraeus Lion, is notable for having been defaced with lengthy runic inscriptions carved in the 11th century by Scandinavian mercenary soldiers.
The Arsenal Novissimo was begun in 1473. It enabled the creation of a system similar to an assembly line, in which hulls were constructed in the newer areas of the Arsenal before being fitted out in the old Arsenal.
In the late 16th century, the Arsenal's designers experimented with larger ships as platforms for heavy naval guns. The most impressive was the galleass, already used at Lepanto, and developed from the old merchanting "great galley". It was huge, with sails as well as oars, and was virtually a floating fortress, with guns mounted on wheeled carriages along the sides in the modern fashion. It was slow and unwieldy in battle, however, and few were ever built. The galleon, also developed at the Arsenal, was an armed sailing ship, a slimmer version of the merchant "round ship". It was useful in major naval battles, but not in the small bays and off the frequent lee shores of the Dalmatian coast.
Significant parts of the Arsenal were destroyed under Napoleonic rule, and later rebuilt to enable the Arsenal's present use as a naval base. It is also used as a research centre, an exhibition venue during the Venice Biennale and is home to a historic boat preservation centre.
The Arsenal Novissimo was begun in 1473. It enabled the creation of a system similar to an assembly line, in which hulls were constructed in the newer areas of the Arsenal before being fitted out in the old Arsenal.
In the late 16th century, the Arsenal's designers experimented with larger ships as platforms for heavy naval guns. The most impressive was the galleass, already used at Lepanto, and developed from the old merchanting "great galley". It was huge, with sails as well as oars, and was virtually a floating fortress, with guns mounted on wheeled carriages along the sides in the modern fashion. It was slow and unwieldy in battle, however, and few were ever built. The galleon, also developed at the Arsenal, was an armed sailing ship, a slimmer version of the merchant "round ship". It was useful in major naval battles, but not in the small bays and off the frequent lee shores of the Dalmatian coast.
Significant parts of the Arsenal were destroyed under Napoleonic rule, and later rebuilt to enable the Arsenal's present use as a naval base. It is also used as a research centre, an exhibition venue during the Venice Biennale and is home to a historic boat preservation centre.
Palazzo Labia
The Labia family, who commissioned the palazzo, were originally Spanish and bought their way into nobility in 1646, hence considered arriviste by the old Venetian aristocracy. The wars with the Ottamans had depleted the coffers of the Republic of Venice which then sold inscriptions into nobility, thus giving political clout. It has been said that they compensated their lack of ancestors by a great display of wealth. [1] Today the Palazzo Labia is the sole remaining example of this ostentation.
It is the members of the Labia family of the mid 18th century to whom the palazzo owes its notability today, it was inhabited by two brothers with their wives, children and mother. The brothers Angelo Maria Labia and his brother Paolo Antonio Labia employed Tiepolo at the height of his powers to decorate the ballroom. Employing Tiepolo seems to have been the most remarkable thing the brothers ever achieved. Angelo Maria became an Abbé, merely in order to escape the political obligations of an aristocrat of the Republic. Curiously his holy employment did not prevent him marrying. His wife however was a commoner, which indicates an almost morganatic status to the marriage. Angelo's chief interests were constructing a marionette theatre, which concealed real singers behind its scenes. The marionettes often performed satirical plays which Angelo wrote himself. In later life he failed to endear himself to Venetian society by becoming an informer to the dreaded inquisition. His younger brother Paolo, married conventionally into the old Venetian aristocracy, a class prepared to except the Labia's money and hospitality if not equality. Paolo too never assumed any public duties. It appears that it was their mother, Maria Labia, who was the intellectual driving force of the family, in her youth a great beauty, she was painted by Rosalba Carriera. The French traveller and social commentator Charles de Brosses reported that in old age she had a lively wit, flirtatious nature and possessed the finest collection of jewels in Europe. This collection was also portrayed in some of Tiepolo's work in the palazzo.
It is the members of the Labia family of the mid 18th century to whom the palazzo owes its notability today, it was inhabited by two brothers with their wives, children and mother. The brothers Angelo Maria Labia and his brother Paolo Antonio Labia employed Tiepolo at the height of his powers to decorate the ballroom. Employing Tiepolo seems to have been the most remarkable thing the brothers ever achieved. Angelo Maria became an Abbé, merely in order to escape the political obligations of an aristocrat of the Republic. Curiously his holy employment did not prevent him marrying. His wife however was a commoner, which indicates an almost morganatic status to the marriage. Angelo's chief interests were constructing a marionette theatre, which concealed real singers behind its scenes. The marionettes often performed satirical plays which Angelo wrote himself. In later life he failed to endear himself to Venetian society by becoming an informer to the dreaded inquisition. His younger brother Paolo, married conventionally into the old Venetian aristocracy, a class prepared to except the Labia's money and hospitality if not equality. Paolo too never assumed any public duties. It appears that it was their mother, Maria Labia, who was the intellectual driving force of the family, in her youth a great beauty, she was painted by Rosalba Carriera. The French traveller and social commentator Charles de Brosses reported that in old age she had a lively wit, flirtatious nature and possessed the finest collection of jewels in Europe. This collection was also portrayed in some of Tiepolo's work in the palazzo.
San Marco at dusk.
Saint Mark's Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco a Venezia), the cathedral of Venice, is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. It lies on St Mark's Square (in the San Marco sestiere or district) adjacent and connected to the Doge's Palace. Originally it was the "chapel" of the Venetian rulers, and not the city's cathedral. Since 1807 it has been the seat of the Patriarch of Venice, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. For its opulent design, gilded Byzantine mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power, from the 11th century on the building was known by the nickname Chiesa d'Oro (Church of gold).
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