Venice: Pure City

Yet a more exalted association can be placed beside this talk of taxes and ducats. It is significant, for example, that both Venetians and Jews had a solemn sense of law and a sacred belief in nationhood. They both shared a preoccupation with their native territory as a common heritage. They both believed that their constitution was in essence a covenant between deity and people. They both reverenced their forefathers, and had an inordinate respect for custom and tradition. The Jews knew themselves to be mutually interdependent, part of a communal life rendered ever more sacred by a common purpose and the necessity of self-preservation. Does this not remind us of the Venetian state? The two cultures were images one of another.

The Battle of Lepanto, painted by Paolo Veronese in 1571. This work was completed just a few months after a famous victory of the Venetian forces (among others) over the Turks. Two hundred and thirty Turkish vessels were sunk or captured, with only thirteen losses for the Europeans. Lepanto was the last battle in which the use of the oar held the key. In later engagements the sails were raised. (photo credit i2.1)

Plan of the Arsenal in the seventeenth century. The Arsenal of Venice was the largest shipbuilding enterprise in the world, with its own network of docks and system of production lines. Ships were turned out from the shipbuilding yards of the Arsenal fully rigged and fitted, in the first version of the capitalist factory. (photo credit i2.2)

Detail of a Venetian warship, taken from the mausoleum of Girolamo Michiel completed in 1559. The image of the ship, and the circumambient sea, can be glimpsed everywhere in Venice. The city itself can be seen as a ship upon the waves. (photo credit i2.3)

The sign for the Marangoni family of shipbuilders, painted on panel in 1517. Shipbuilding was of course one of the principal crafts of a city surrounded by water. Ship-builders offered defence, and protection, against the watery element. (photo credit i2.4)

Jan van Grevenbroeck’s painting of a workman dredging a canal, an image of the eighteenth century. In all periods of Venetian history the government was involved in major efforts concerning health care and sanitation. (photo credit i2.5)

Jan van Grevenbroeck’s painting of an oar-maker at work in Arsenal. Oar-making was one of the many Venetian trades springing from the sea. The oar was used in the perpetual battle against the natural world and in warfare against the city’s competitors. (photo credit i2.6)

A painting of a Venetian doctor during the time of plague, by Jan van Grevenbroeck. During the time of pestilence the doctors clothed themselves in black robes, coated with wax and aromatic oils; they wore a hood and cowl over their heads, large glasses to protect their eyes, and a long beak-like nose with a filter at its end. They looked themselves like ghouls. (photo credit i2.7)

The shop of a Venetian bell-maker, at the end of the eighteenth century, painted by Jan van Grevenbroeck. Venice was a city of bells, all of them pealing together at the time of processions. They also had a more practical use. The bells rang out at precise times of day to coordinate the activities of the populace. (photo credit i2.8)

A showroom with lamps and vases. For many centuries Venice has been famous for its glass-making, now the preponderant industry on the island of Murano. What is the attraction of glass for the city of the sea? Glass is material sea. It is sea made solid, its translucence captured and held immobile. (photo credit i2.9)

Lace workers on the island of Burano, photographed at the end of the nineteenth century. Burano has been for many centuries the home of lace-making in Venice. Lace is a Venetian specialty; like the mosaic it is an art of elaboration and intricacy. (photo credit i2.10)

A Venetian courtyard at the end of the nineteenth century. Venice is a city of dead-ends, and of circuitous alleys; there are twisting calli, and hidden turnings; there are low archways and blank courtyards, where the silence is suspended like a mist. (photo credit i2.11)

A photograph of a funeral gondola, taken at the beginning of the twentieth century. Venice has always been associated with death, and the gondola itself has often been viewed as a floating hearse. (photo credit i2.12)

The new railway bridge over the lagoon, depicted in the middle of the nineteenth century. The bridge represented perhaps the most radical change in the history of Venice. It became connected to the mainland. The city was no longer an island, and had lost its hallowed status as a refuge from the world. It meant, too, that the prime significance of the water had gone forever. It became a city of mechanical, rather than of natural, time. (photo credit i2.13)