Venice: Pure City

An eighteenth-century painting by Gabriele Bella showing a concert given by the girls of the hospital music societies in Venice. The orphan girls in the charitable institutions of the state were given an extensive and elaborate musical training, so that their concerts became the wonder of the age. “I cannot imagine anything,” Rousseau wrote, “so voluptuous, so touching as this music.” (photo credit i4.2)

The Parlour of the San Zaccaria Convent in Venice. This painting by Francesco Guardi reveals the refined and luxurious atmosphere of the eighteenth-century convents of Venice. They were essentially homes for unmarried patrician women, accustomed to the comforts of the outer world. The convents of Venice became a form of theatre, with the nuns sitting behind gratings watching the rest of Venice cavort before them. (photo credit i4.3)

A pen and ink drawing of 1787 showing a cross-section view of a theatre on the Grand Canal. The theatre was intrinsic to Venetian life, and Venetians were known throughout Europe for their love of drama. It was a passion that touched all classes, from the gondolier to the patrician. Venetian stagecraft was also renowned for its subtlety and elaboration. (photo credit i4.4)

A portrait of the Venetian dramatist, Carlo Goldoni, by Alessandro Longhi. Goldoni was the greatest of all the city’s playwrights. His was the comedy of Venetian social life. He held a mirror up to Venetian nature. He captivated the eighteenth-century public with portraits of gondoliers and of servants, of shop-keepers and housewives. (photo credit i4.5)

An eighteenth-century watercolour of a Venetian nobleman patronising a café. Venice has always been more famous for its cafés than for its restaurants. In the eighteenth century they were calculated to number two hundred, with thirty-five in Saint Mark’s Square itself. The customers enjoyed cups of coffee and cups of chocolate, or glasses of lemonade and syrup. (photo credit i4.6)

A fresco painted by Giandomenico Tiepolo, at the end of the eighteenth century, showing Pulcinella disporting with acrobats. Pulcinella was a character from commedia dell’arte, the characteristic Venetian entertainment that first emerged in the sixteenth century, growing ever wilder and more obscene over the centuries. He wore a white costume and a black mask, and was well known for his long nose. In England he became known as Punch. (photo credit i4.7)

A pen and ink sketch, from the eighteenth century, showing three masked figures in Carnival costume. The Carnival was instituted at the end of the eleventh century, and has continued without interruption for almost seven hundred years. By the eighteenth century, at the very latest, the masks had become indispensable. Even the beggars wore masks. (photo credit i4.8)

Canaletto’s painting A Regatta on the Grand Canal. The regatta was an annual event, at the time of the Carnival, watched eagerly by all Venetians; it was formally instituted in the fourteenth century, and has continued ever since. This painting shows the one-oared light gondola race. (photo credit i4.9)

A painting of a masked ball taking place in Saint Mark’s Square during the Carnival. John Evelyn, the seventeenth-century English diarist, described such events as part of the “universal madnesse” with “the Women, Men & persons of all Conditions disguising themselves in antique dresses & extravagant Musique & a thousand gambols.” (photo credit i4.10)

A painting by Gabriele Bella showing a battle with sticks on a Venetian bridge. It was known as la guerra dei pugni

or the war of the fists, fought between the inhabitants of the various territories and neighbourhoods. A team from each of these territories met for battle on a chosen bridge, while thousands of spectators lined the streets and houses beside the canal. It was a glorified fist-fight in which the object was to hurl opponents into the water and to gain possession of the bridge. (photo credit i4.11)

A game of bowls in the Campo dei Gesuiti, painted by Gabriele Bella in the eighteenth century. The square or campo was at the heart of the neighbourhood. It spread before the parish church and was once its burial ground. It was a self-contained entity, marked out by its well and carved well-head where the women of the parish came to gossip. It was a Venice in miniature. (photo credit i4.12)

An etching of the Bridge of Sighs, that led from the ducal palace to the ducal prisons. It was named after the laments of those about to be gaoled, and is the most picturesque of all penitential emblems. It was not in fact given that name until the nineteenth century; yet it serves the purpose, and the image, of Venice very well. (photo credit i4.13)