Sights in Venice
-
A
Basilica di San Marco
Luminous angels trumpet the way into San Marco in glittering mosaics above vast portals. Inside, the soaring stone structure still sets standards for razzle-dazzle, from the intricate geometry of 12th-century polychrome marble floors to 11th- to 15th-century mosaic domes glittering with millions of gilt-glass tesserae (tiles). This show-stopper took a brains trust of Mediterranean artisans almost 800 years and grand larceny to complete. Legend has it that Venetian merchants smuggled the corpse of St Mark out of Egypt in 828; the arrival of St Mark’s body in Venice is depicted in mosaics dating from 1270 on the left of the facade. Riots and fires thrice destroyed exterior …
reviewed
-
B
Palazzo Ducale
Don’t be fooled by its Gothic elegance: this building was all business, from medieval carved stone capitals depicting key Venetian guilds along the arcade, to Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon’s 15th-century PortadellaCarta (Paper Door), the bulletin board for government decrees facing the piazza. The building was damaged by fire in 1577, but Antonio da Ponte (who designed the Ponte di Rialto) restored it.
Entering through the colonnaded courtyard, you’ll spot Sansovino’s statues of Mars and Neptune flanking the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase), which Antonio Rizzo built as a suitably grand entrance for Venice’s dignitaries and which is currently undergoing restora…
reviewed
-
C
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
After tragically losing her father on the Titanic, heiress Peggy Guggenheim befriended Dadaists, dodged Nazis, and amassed avant-garde works by 200 modern artists at her palatial home on the Grand Canal. Peggy’s Palazzo Venier dei Leoni became a modernist shrine, chronicling surrealism, Italian futurism, and abstract expressionism, with a subtext of Peggy’s romantic pursuits – the collection includes key works by Peggy’s ex-husband Max Ernst and Jackson Pollock, among Peggy’s many rumoured lovers. Peggy collected according to her own convictions rather than for prestige or style, so her collection includes inspired folk art and lesser-known local artists alongside artis…
reviewed
-
D
Gallerie dell’Accademia
Hardly academic, these galleries contain more murderous intrigue, forbidden romance, shameless politicking and near-riots than the most outrageous Venetian parties. The walls of the former Santa Maria della Carità convent complex maintained their serene composure for centuries, with the outstanding architectural assistance of Bartolomeo Bon, Palladio and Carlo Scarpa – but ever since Napoleon installed his haul of Venetian art trophies in this convent in 1807, there’s been nonstop visual drama inside these walls. To guide you through the ocular onslaught, visits are loosely organised by style, theme and painter from the 14th to 18th centuries, beginning with Paolo Venezia…
reviewed
-
E
St Mark's Square
Napoleon dubbed it the 'finest drawing room in Europe', and visitors and pigeons alike have been flocking here for centuries to strut and crow. There is a constant carnival atmosphere thanks to the cacophony of duelling cafe orchestras, cooing pigeons, and constant traffic of waiters serving alfresco diners.
Now that most visitors arrive in Venice via the railway station, the magical symbolism of the waterside Piazzetta San Marco has to a great extent been lost.
The piazzetta's two columns bear emblems of the city's patron saints: the winged lion of St Mark and the figure of St Theodore. From the Campanile (bell tower), you can enjoy breathtaking views. St Mark's Square i…
reviewed
-
F
Museo della Musica
Housed in the restored neoclassical Chiesa di San Maurizio, this collection of rare and often very curious instruments spans the 17th to 19th centuries and is accompanied by informative panels on the life and times of Antonio Vivaldi. To hear how these instruments sound in action, check out the kiosk with a range of early-music CDs and ticket point for Interpreti Veneziani, who fund this museum and play museum-piece instruments with modern verve around the corner at San Vidal.
reviewed
-
G
La Pietà
Originally called Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione but fondly nicknamed La Pietà, this Giorgio Massari–designed church is best known for its association with the composer Vivaldi, who was concertmaster here in the early 18th century – hence its current sporadic use as a concert hall. The original church was located next door, and a few fragments of it are visible in the Hotel Metropole.
reviewed
-
H
Giudecca 795
Do you follow the Titian colourists or go with the Tintoretto flow? Either way, Giudecca 795 has you in mind, featuring contemporary artists with a strong sense of colour and dynamic line. Look for Vito Campanelli’s high-impact all-red paintings and Guitamachi’s graphic train-track cityscapes.
reviewed
-
I
Arsenale
Founded in 1104, the Arsenale soon became the greatest medieval shipyard in Europe, home to 300 shipping companies employing up to 16,000 people, and capable of turning out a new galley in a day. Venice’s navy remained unbeatable for centuries, but now arty types invade the shipyards during Venice’s Art and Architecture Biennales. At its peak, the Arsenale covered 46 hectares and must have made an enormous impression, with its boiling black pitch, metalworking and timber-cutting. Dante used it as a model scene for hell in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy; Canto XXI, lines 7 to 21). At the core was the Arsenale Vecchio (Old Arsenal), which had a storage area for the
reviewed
-
J
Museo Ebraico & Jewish Ghetto
This area in Venice was once a getto (foundry) on an island away from the main area of Cannaregio to contain the risk of fire – but its role as the designated Jewish quarter from the 16th to 18th centuries gave the word a whole new meaning. In accordance with the Venetian Republic’s 1516 decree, Jewish artisans and lenders stocked and funded Venice’s commercial enterprises by day, while at night and on Christian holidays, they were restricted to the gated island of the Ghetto Nuovo. If you scan the top floors of the buildings ringing the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo, you can spot three synagogues, or schole (literally, ‘schools’), distinguished from the residential housing…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
Rialto
Rivoalto (later contracted to Rialto), the highest spot in the collection of islets that formed the nucleus of the lagoon city, was one of the areas of first settlement - although the more active part was initially on the San Marco side of the bridge. The San Polo side slowly gained the ascendance and became the centre of trade and banking for the Republic. This is where dosh traded hands, voyages were bankrolled, insurance was arranged and news (or gossip) was exchanged.
The area continues to buzz with the activity of the daily produce and fish markets - why break the habit of 700 years? The Fabbriche Vecchie (Old Buildings), along the Ruga degli Orefici, were created by…
reviewed
-
K
Fondazione Giorgio Cini
A defunct naval academy has been cleverly converted into a shipshape gallery for the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, preserving the original double-height timber ceiling and going for a weatherbeaten-high-design look with luminous stairs in glass and rusted iron. The gallery hosts high-profile international and Italian shows, ranging from a mind-bending avant-garde Japanese typography show to a retrospective of Venice’s own poetic abstractionist, Giuseppe Santomaso – including his Letters to Palladio, paintings of envelopes with Palladian proportions. Behind Palladio’s grand church extend the grounds of the former monastery with a long history, beginning in the 10th century …
reviewed
-
L
Scuola Grande di San Rocco
You’ll swear the paint is still fresh on the 50 action-packed Tintorettos painted between 1575 and 1587 for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Everyone wanted the commission to paint this building dedicated to the patron saint of the plague-stricken, so Tintoretto cheated a little: instead of producing sketches like his rival Veronese, Tintoretto painted a magnificent tondo (ceiling panel) and dedicated it to the saint, knowing such a gift couldn’t be refused or matched by other artists. Take the Scarpagnino staircase to the Sala Grande Superiore, in which Tintoretto covered the ceilings with Old Testament scenes that read like a modern graphic novel. Grab a handglass (m…
reviewed
-
M
Cattedrale di San Pietro di Castello
Unlikely though it may seem, this sleepy church on the far-flung island of San Pietro was Venice’s cathedral from 1451 to 1807 – not the more attention-seeking and conveniently located Basilica di San Marco, which was the doge’s chapel. But the island of San Pietro (originally known as Olivolo) was among the first to be inhabited in Venice, and the original church here was the seat of a bishopric as early as 775. The present church is an almost-but-not-quite Palladio design. Palladio had been awarded the contract in the 1550s, but the death of the patriarch when the architect was two years into the project led to a project hiatus that lasted beyond the genius’s own …
reviewed
-
N
Chiesa dei SS Giovanni e Paolo
Who does brick Gothic best? When the Dominicans undertook the 100-year effort to build Zanipolo in 1333 to rival the Franciscans’ Chiesa diSanta MariaGloriosa dei Frari, the church stirred passions and partisanship more common to Serie A football than architecture. Both have red-brick facades with high-contrast detailing in white stone. But since Zanipolo’s facade remains unfinished, the Frari won a decisive early decision over Zanipolo with its soaring grace – and with Titian’s Assunta altarpiece front and centre, the Frari seemed impossible to surpass. Over the centuries, Zanipolo may have at least tied the score with the sheer scale and variety of its masterpie…
reviewed
-
Giardini Pubblici & Biennale
Modern angles and swing sets jutting out amid the greenery signal that you’re entering the Giardini, home to Venice’s Art Biennale. During the Art Biennale’s June–September run in odd years, curators and connoisseurs swarming national showcases ranging from Geza Rintel Maroti’s 1909 Secessionist-era Hungarian Pavilion, glittering with mosaics, to Peter Cox’s 1988 boxy yellow Australian Pavilion, frequently mistaken for a construction trailer. Carlo Scarpa contributed in one way or another from 1948 to 1972, trying to make the best of Duilio Torres’ Fascist 1932 Italian Pavilion (now the Palazzo delle Esposizione ) and building the entrance courtyard, the dar…
reviewed
-
O
Palazzo Grimani
Hang a right off Ruga Giuffa, and you’ll wind up in ancient Rome by way of Renaissance Venice and Tuscany. Closed to the public for 27 years, this palace has finally been restored to the eye-blinking grandeur initiated by Doge Antonio Grimani, whose reign was brief (1521–23) but his legacy lavish. The Grimani family were Renaissance trendsetters: they’d collected Graeco-Roman archaeological curiosities since before they became cool in the 14th century, and some of their best pieces can be glimpsed today in the Museo Correr. To make their house a suitable setting for such splendours, the Grimani went all out: floors paved with dizzying polychrome marble patterns, the…
reviewed
-
P
Museo Storico Navale
Maritime madness spans four storeys and 42 rooms at this museum of Venice’s seafaring history, featuring full-scale boats including the ducal barge, Peggy Guggenheim’s not-so-minimalist gondola, ocean liners, and WWII battleships. Your first port of call on the ground floor are sprawling galleries of fearsome weaponry – cannons, blunderbusses, swords and sabres – with hardly any noticeable bloodstains. These big guns were rarely needed in Venice, since the shallow, difficult-to-sail lagoon itself was Venice’s best protection against invaders. Check out the 17th-century diorama maps, which show the incredible span of Venetian ports and forts across the Adriatic and Mediter…
reviewed
-
Q
Rialto Market
Cutting-edge restaurants worldwide are catching on to a secret that Rialto markets have kept out in the open for 700 years: food tastes better when it’s fresh, seasonal and local. More vital to Venetian cuisine than any top chef are the fishmongers at the Pescaria. This is any foodie’s first stop in Venice to admire Venetian specialities in the making: glistening mountains of moscardini (baby octopus), crabs ranging from tiny moeche (soft-shell crabs) to granseole (spider crab), and inky seppie (squid) of all sizes. Sustainable fishing practices are not a new idea at the Pescaria, where marble plaques show regulations set centuries ago for minimum allowable sizes for …
reviewed
-
R
Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi
High Renaissance meets high risk at this 16th-century palace, which for centuries has served as the city’s casino. This might seem like an odd place to convalesce, but composer Richard Wagner was no stranger to drama, and chose to retreat here in 1882–83 to recover from an apparent bout of heart trouble and complete the 20-year effort on this Ring cycle. He succeeded, only to die of a heart attack here within a few months. You can wander into the ground-floor area during casino hours, but unless you’re staying in a high-end hotel that offers free passes, you’ll have to don formal attire and pay to see the gaming rooms. Three of the salons Wagner occupied have been set a…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
S
Riva degli Schiavoni
The waterside walkway west from Rio Ca’ di Dio to the Palazzo Ducale in San Marco is Venice’s stone boardwalk, the Riva degli Schiavoni. Schiavoni (literally, ‘Slavs’) refers to the fishermen from Dalmatia in the region of the former Yugoslavia who arrived in Venice in medieval times, and found this a handy spot for casting their nets. For centuries, vessels would dock and disembark here right into the heart of Venice – if they could find a parking space between galleons and gondolas. A Rosetta Stone’s worth of languages were spoken here, as traders, dignitaries, sailors and servants arrived from ports around the Mediterranean and beyond. Paolo Veronese’s Fe…
reviewed
-
T
Palazzo Querini Stampalia
Design-savvy drinkers take their spritz ( prosecco cocktail) with a twist of high modernism in the Carlo Scarpa–designed courtyard garden or Mario Botta–designed cafe of 16th-century Palazzo Querini Stampalia. The outer shell of this building dates from the first half of the 16th century, but the inside could not be more surprising: a 1963 bridge, 1940s entrance and garden, and 1959 1st-floor library all designed by Scarpa, with noteworthy 1990s Botta embellishments. Enter through the Botta-designed bookstore to get a free pass to the cafe and its garden, or buy a ticket to head upstairs to the 2nd-floor Museo della Fondazione Querini Stampalia. In a series of sumptuo…
reviewed
-
U
I Frari (Chiesa di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari)
Like moths to an eternal flame, visitors are inexorably drawn to the front of this cavernous, dimly lit Gothic church by a small altarpiece that seems to come equipped with its own sunlight. This is Titian’s 1518 Assunta (aka Madonna of the Ascension ), capturing the split second the radiant Madonna reaches heavenward, her signature Titian-red robe in glorious disarray as she finds her footing on a cloud. Both inside and outside the painting, onlookers below gasp and point out the ascending Madonna to one another. As if this weren’t too much to handle already, the lofty brick Gothic I Frari (or Chiesa di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari) has other fascinating features: mi…
reviewed
-
V
Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna
Designed and built by Jacopo Sansovino with a facade by a precocious Palladio in his first church commission, this enchanting Franciscan church is one of Venice’s most underrated attractions. The Madonna positively glows in Bellini’s 1507 Madonna and Saints in the Capella Santa just off the flower-carpeted cloister courtyard, while swimming angels and strutting birds steal the scene in Antonio da Negroponte’s c 1460–70 delightful Virgin Enthroned. Palladio and the Madonna are tough acts to follow, but father–son sculptors Pietro and Tullio Lombardo’s 15th-century marble reliefs of saints and the life of Christ, housed in the Cappella Giustiniani, in the north …
reviewed
-
W
Chiesa di San Zaccaria
When 15th-century Venetian Paris Hiltons showed more interest in sailors than saints, they might be sent for a stint at the convent adjoining Chiesa di San Zaccaria; Venice’s spoiled daughters passed their time in prayer here, with breaks for concerts and occasionally scandalous masked balls. The wealth showered on this church by their grateful (or at least hopeful) parents is evident. To your right as you enter, the Cappella di Sant’Anastasia holds works by Tintoretto and Tiepolo and magnificently crafted choir stalls, and through another chapel from here you’ll reach the frescoed Cappella di San Tarasion (also called Cappella d’Oro or Golden Chapel). Twelfth-centu…
reviewed
