Thursday, August 7.
A clear, very warm day, desite high rain probabilities.
7-day vaporetto tickets went up to 60 euros from 50 last week.
The Ca’D’oro, regarded as the most beautiful of the surviving Renaissance palaces that line the Grand Canal, is now a museum (what else?). During the 19th century, owner Baron Giorgio Franchetti assembled a personal art collection, mostly by acquiring works from decommissioned churches and monasteries at distressed prices.
(We don’t really have a handle on the historic details. The Museum placards here and elsewhere explain that under both the French and the Austrians, many churches, monasteries, and convents were closed. A lot of art has been lost to bad maintenance, but a lot found its way to the art market. Cf. the Henry Horn Museum in Florence.
We started with the exterior stone floor, installed by Franchetti in the 19th Century. The designs were inspired by church floors of San Marco and SS Maria and Donato in Murano (see Friday).
Franchetti used marbles sourced from around the Mediterranean.
Upstairs, Andrea Montegna’s St. Sebastian was clearly the star of the show:
Franchetti created a small chapel to house the work:
(Montegna St. Sebastian’s are also at the Louvre and the Vienna Kunsthistorische. But Montegna is probably best known for this riveting foreshortened image of Christ:
)
We interrupted our visit to the Ca’D’Oro to visit several churches in the district, but first we went to lunch.
We chanced upon Vini di Gigio, an attractive and highly-rated restaurant. Leslie ordered the soft-shelled crabs. They are very small (spider crabs) and delicious:
Bruce had frito misto again. There were some of the smallest shrimp ever fried:
One church was that of St. Alvise. St Alvise is St Louis of Toulouse. This St Louis was the son of Charles II of Anjou for whom he spent 7 years of his childhood as a hostage. He became a Franciscan and bishop of Toulouse. It is not clear why he was canonized in 1317.
Bruce was especially taken with this saintly grouping by Conegliano.
Tintoretto’s tomb:
Santa Maria del Orto has interesting exterior features:
Inside there were many Tinteretto’s.
The church was built to house this miraculous statue:
Friday, August 8. Murano.
Murano is about a kilometer north of Venice. Although it was settled earlier, it does not have the space for a large town to develop. In the 16th Century, the Venetian Council ordered the glass industry to re-locate all facilities to Murano. The idea was to protect trade secrets.
The strategy could not fully succeed and, by the later 17th century, there were competing glass centers in France, Prague, and Augsburg. Venice’s glass works today have held on by a thread and there seems to be something of a resurgence. We are informed that there are 8 furnaces at work and about 5000-7000 residents on Murano today.
Mostly the stuff is crap:
But there are some new and imaginative products:
Murano’s best site is the Church of SS Maria & Donato, famous for its 12th century floors:
What is this? Lice?
The central square hs been enlived with this large work:
We had lunch at Busa alla Torre (awnings in the background). More soft-shelled crabs (larger); Leslie had fried scampi.
We went to dinner in San Stefano square down the street at Ristorante San Stefano: gnocchi with tomato cream sauce with ham; lasagne (cold cream was poured over it and the sauce was seasoned with cinnamon) --- both quite good; sgroppino. We had fond memories of sgroppino from Bellagio. There it was lemon ice with prosecco and vodka poured over it. Here it was a drink of lemon gelato and, I assume, prosecco and vodka run through a blender. It was too sweet and, of course, lacked the texture.
Saturday, August 9:
We woke up earlyish so we decided to go to the Palazzo Ducale and beat the lines. Its the pinkish building on the right:
All of the high government offices were here. It’s also where the Doge and his family lived. And, next door, you find the prison. Many volumes have been written about the government of Venice, which lasted over 1000 years. Here, we’ll spend less time than we took to describe a disappointing sgropinno.
The government of Venice was complicated, highly bureaucratic, and incredibly stable. The stability is attributed to state propaganda.
Various entities were created ad hoc and remained forever. It was also decentralized and incorporated various checks and balances.
The Palazzo structure at this site goes back to the 900s, but was continually modified and expanded. What you see today is a reconstruction done in the 1570s and 1580s, after a bad fire.
Some of the damaged stonework has been preserved. This piece shows how the blue and gold color was once much more extensive:
The ornate courtyard with a St. Mark dome in the background:
The clock in the Senate Chamber had 24 hours and went counter-clockwise. This is not a reversed image:
For longer proceedings, the Senators could watch the Zodiac go by:
Our camera could catch this small item (above the throne in the Grand Council room) from a good distance:
Bruce is so pleased with his camera.
Dinner at Le Café on San Stephano P. Tagliatare and pizza.
No comments:
Post a Comment