Venice
Authors: Peter Ackroyd
FICTION
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor
Chatterton
First Light
English Music
The House of Doctor Dee
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
Milton in America
The Plato Papers
The Clerkenwell Tales
The Lambs of London
The Fall of Troy
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
NONFICTION
Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession
London: The Biography
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
BIOGRAPHY
Ezra Pound and His World
T.S. Eliot
Dickens
Blake
The Life of Thomas More
Shakespeare: The Biography
ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES
Chaucer
J.M.W. Turner
Newton
Poe: A Life Cut Short
POETRY
Ouch!
The Diversions of Purley and Other Poems
CRITICISM
Notes for a New Culture
The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures
edited by Thomas Wright
Copyright © 2009 by Peter Ackroyd
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus,
The Random House Group Ltd., London, in 2009.
Doubleday is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc. Nan A. Talese and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ackroyd, Peter, 1949–
Venice : pure city / Peter Ackroyd. — 1st ed. in the United States of America.
p. cm.
“Originally published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, London,
in 2009”—T.p. verso.
1. Venice (Italy)—History. 2. Venice (Italy)—Social conditions. 3. Venice (Italy)—Social life and customs. 4. Venice (Italy)—Civilization. I. Title.
DG672.2.A25 2009b
945′.311—dc22
2010010350
eISBN: 978-0-385-53153-5
v3.1
For
Alison Samuel
I would like to thank my two research assistants, Thomas Wright and Murrough O’Brien, for their invaluable work on this project. I would also like to extend my thanks to my editor, Jenny Uglow, and my copy-editor, Jenny Overton.
Section One
i1.1
Cristoforo Sabbadino,
Map of Venice
, c.1557. Archivio di stato, Venice/Cameraphoto Arte Venezia/Bridgeman
i1.2
Perspective plan of Venice (detail). Musée du Louvre, Paris/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i1.3
The mosaics in Saint Mark’s cathedral, late 14c. Alinari/Rex Features
i1.4
The Madonna, cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello, early 13c. akg-images/Cameraphoto
i1.5
The Flood
, mosaic in the narthex, western portico, of Saint Mark’s cathedral, 13c. akg-images/Erich Lessing
i1.6
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti),
The Stealing of the Body of Saint Mark
, 1562–66. Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i1.7
The Lion of Saint Mark
, 15c., Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i1.8
Monks praying to Saint Theodore
, from a Mariegola, 1350. Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i1.9
Simon Marsden, The columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, Piazzeta San Marco. The Marsden Archive, UK/Bridgeman
i1.10
Gentile Bellini,
Procession on the Piazza S. Marco
, 1496. Galleria dell’Accademia/akg-images/Erich Lessing
i1.11
Piazza S. Marco, c.1880–90. Roger-Viollet/Rex Features
i1.12
Gentile Bellini,
The Miracle of the Cross on San Lorenzo Bridge
, 1500. Galleria dell’Accademia/Bridgeman
i1.13
Francesco Guardi,
The Departure of the Bucintoro towards the Lido on Ascension Day
(detail), 1766–70, Musée du Louvre/Giraudon/Bridgeman
i1.14
Vittore Carpaccio,
The patriarch of Grado heals a possessed man on the Rialto Bridge
(detail), 1494 Galleria dell’Accademia/akg-images/Cameraphoto
i2.1
Paolo Veronese,
The Battle of Lepanto
, 1571. Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice/akg-images
i2.2
Plan of the Arsenal. Museo Correr, Venice/Bridgeman
i2.3
Franceso Segala, a Venetian warship, on the Mausoleum of Girolamo Michiel, c. 1558–59. Basilica of Sant’Antonio, Padua/Bridgeman
i2.4
Sign for the Marangoni family of shipbuilders, 1517. Museo Correr/Alinari/Bridgeman
i2.5
Jan van Grevenbroeck,
Dredging a Canal
, 18c. Museo Correr/Giraudon/Bridgeman
i2.6
Jan van Grevenbroeck,
An Oar-Maker from the Arsenal
, 18c. Museo Storico Navale, Venice/Bridgeman
i2.7
Jan van Grevenbroeck,
A Venetian Doctor during the Plague
, 18c. Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i2.8
Jan van Grevenbroeck,
Venetian Bellmaker’s Shop
, 18c. Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i2.9
Venetian glass in the Pauly showrooms, Milan, 1910. Alinari/Rex Features
i2.10
Lace workers on Burano, 19c. Collezione Naya-Bohm, Venice/Bridgeman
i2.11
Ferdinando Ongania,
A Venetian Courtyard
, c. 1880. Museo di Storia della Fotografia Fratelli Alinari, Florence/Bridgeman
i2.12
A funeral gondola, 1880–1920. Collezione Naya-Bohm, Venice/Bridgeman
i2.13
Giovanni Pividor, The railway bridge across the lagoon, from
Views of Principal Monuments in Venice
, 1850. Bridgeman
i2.14
The remains of the Campanile,
La Domenica del Corriere
, 27 July 1902. Cameraphoto Arte Venezia Corriere/Bridgeman
i2.15
“Windows of the Early Gothic Palaces,” from John Ruskin,
The Stones of Venice
, 1851–3
i3.1
Giovanni Bellini,
Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice
, c.1501. National Gallery, London/Bridgeman
i3.2
Joseph Heintz,
Audience with the Doge in the College of the Ducal Palace
, early 17c. Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i3.3
Pietro Uberti,
Portrait of three lawyers, Orazio Bembo, Orazio Angarano and Melchior Gabriel
, 1730. Palazzo Ducale/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.4
Jacobello del Fiore,
Justice and the Archangels
, 1421. Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.5
The lion’s mouth. Palazzo Ducale/Bridgeman
i3.6
The Pozzi prison, from
Vedute delle Prigioni
, 18c. Museo Correr/Bridgeman
i3.7
Vittore Carpaccio,
Dream of Saint Ursula
, 1495, Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.8
Pietro Longhi,
The Tailor
, 1742–3. Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.9
Pietro Longhi,
The Geography Lesson
, c.1750–2. Galleria Querini-Stampalia/Bridgeman
i3.10
Pietro Longhi,
The Perfume Seller
, c.1750. Ca’Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento/Alinari/Bridgeman
i3.11
Madonna of Mercy, 16c. Museo Correr/Alinari/Bridgeman
i3.12
Paolo Veneziano,
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Devout People
, 14c. Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.13
Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano,
The Coronation of the Virgin
, late 15c. Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.14
Giorgione (Giorgio da Castelfranco),
The Tempest
, c.1506–8. Galleria dell’Accademia/Cameraphoto/Bridgeman
i3.15
Giovanni Bellini,
Young Woman at Her Toilet
, 1515. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna/akg-images/Erich Lessing
i3.16
Titian (Tizian Vecellio),
Venus of Urbino
(detail), before 1538. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence/Bridgeman
i4.1
Paolo Veronese,
The Marriage Feast at Cana
(detail), c. 1562. Musée du Louvre/Giraudon/Bridgeman
i4.2
Gabriele Bella,
Concert by the girls of the hospital music societies in the Procuratie, Venice
, 18c. Galleria Querini-Stampalia/Bridgeman
i4.3
Francesco Guardi,
The Parlour of the San Zaccaria Convent
, 18c. Ca’Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento, Venice/Bridgeman
i4.4
Pietro Bianchi, Cross-section of a theatre on the Grand Canal, 1787
i4.5
Alessandro Longhi,
Carlo Goldoni
, 18c. Casa Goldoni, Venice/Bridgeman