Day 261 - Venice Day 2

You have to get up pretty
early to see the square this empty

The sun rose up over the Piazza San Marcos on the morning of our second full day in Venice. Angela, the fotografo straordinario, had woken me early to hustle over from our accommodation to what is arguably one of the most beautiful locations in the world: St. Mark's Square. Her reasoning was that in addition to the morning light that would enhance the colours of the scenery we we would also be avoiding much of the tourist crowd that will inevitably be filling up the square today. According to the author Margaret Plant, a French tourist book from the mid-1800s once asserted that when Napoleon occupied Venice he described the piazza as "a salon designed for the sky to serve as a canopy" and on this day, and at this time, it certainly was. Most people would recognize a picture of St. Mark's with it's three distiguishing structures. The first is the free-standing bell tower known as the Camponile di San Marco. It rises over 320 feet above the square and was first built as it looks now in 1514, but in 1902 it fell apart and it took ten years to reconstruct. The tower is associated with the St. Mark's Basilica, which stands across the square.

Sunrise over San Marco

The basilica is the centre of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Venice and was originally the chapel of the Doge of Venice (the political leader of the Republic of Venice, elected by the city's aristocracy for over 1,000 years until the French occupation at the end of the 18th century). It is Italo-Byzantine architecture and the first chapel was constructed there in the 8th century A.D. The chapel has taken many shapes, but the look it has today has been attributed to the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries with many of its features and ornateness resulting from the Republic's involvement in the 12 Crusades. It is only since the early 1800s that it has been the location of the Archdiocese.

Bridge of Sighs - palace to the
left and the prison to the right

Finally, there is the Doge Palace. It has taken many forms since its early years of the 8th century, but the look it has today is from the 1300s. As it's name suggests, the palace was the home of the Doge and was used not only for living purposes but also housed offices that were associated with the political actions of running Venice.

When you walk along the waterfront from St. Marks easterly, you pass the famous "Bridge of Sighs" that linked the palace with the prison. It get's its name from the sighs that prisoners would make as they looked out its windows on their way from the court to the prison. It was built in 1600 so actually existed later than much of the Venice history associated with inquisitions and executions, although at the end of the 1500s there was the inquisition of the Venetian Jews, which leads me to our next topic of the day.

In the Ghetto district ,the buildings are typically higher
than other parts of Venice, because Jewish residents
could only build up not out.

Angela had mentioned that based on one of her previous visits to Venice it would be interesting to go to the Jewish Museum. Located in the Venetian Ghetto area, it provides an interesting perspective on the history of the Jewish culture in Venice. The word "ghetto" is actually derived from here. The museum itself comprises one large floor of a tall building that also houses two synagogues. In 1516, the Republic of Venice required all Jews to moved to this area of Venice where they were sequestered. Even prior to that time, if you were of the Jewish faith you were limited in how you could live and what occupation you were allowed to perform. There jobs included operating pawn shops and lending, activities that Christian Venetians were not allowed to partake in. Even though these heavy restrictions existed, a culture of arts and science flourished within both the Ghetto Nuovo (New) and the Ghetto Vechia (Old) districts. At night, the bridges that crossed canals that isolated these districts from the rest of Venice were closed and policed by the Republic. This lasted almost 300 years until Napolean arrived and removed the restrictions giving Venetian Jews the freedom to move about Venice.

"So when is history un-natural?" pondered this Canadian tourist

Entrance to the
museum

We then made our way to the Museum of Natural History, located only a stone's throw from the water bus stop near our B&B.  Our knowledge as to what we might encounter here was limited aside from the generalization that it would address earth history. But we also anticipated that it would have a Venetian context to it. We were not disappointed. Located in a wonderful building along the Grand Canal, it houses a tremendous variety of natural objects ranging from fossils to anthropological discoveries, all of which were found and donated by members of Venice society, past and present. It was the associated history of the past members that was so different for us. Fossils and dinosaur bones can be found at the Royal Ontario Museum, but here we discovered the work of many prominent Venetian explorers, with the most interesting of them being the one's who travelled the African continent.

We had a late and light lunch (say that three times real fast) before heading back for an afternoon nap and the World Cup game (Uruguay vs France). There is nothing like an Italian sportscaster and the game of football (soccer) -- they make the simplest of maneuvers of the game sound exciting!

Ale of the Day: Unfortunately I have suspended this segment until my return to the UK as there are no real ales available here - just lagers, which I will suffer with until then.