Your first visit to Venice – a suggested itinerary Part 6

Your first visit to Venice - Part 1 Monday (day of arrival)
Your first visit to Venice - Part 2 Tuesday
Your first visit to Venice - Part 3 Wednesday 
Your first visit to Venice - Part 4 Thursday 
Your first visit to Venice - Part 5 Friday 

Part 6/ Day 6 - SATURDAY

The weekend will be the busiest in the city of your few days in Venice, and you’ll probably notice how much more difficult it will be to circulate around Venice, and if you go near the Piazza, how long the queues will be to enter the Palazzo Ducale and the Basilica di San Marco, in particular.  

I’d stay away from the Piazza between the hours of around 8.30am – 6pm during these few days.  Instead, take the opportunity to explore some of the less well-known parts of the city.

Rialto markets

Rise early today and catch the action at the famous Rialto markets. 

Traghetto

Now, take a traghetto trip across the Grand Canal from Rialto to the Santa Sofia stop.

The Grand Canal from a traghetto between Rialto and Santa Sofia

Ca d’Oro

Ca d’Oro is Venice’s finest Gothic building.  Its elaborate exterior is clad with white and coloured marbles (including red Verona marble).  Its window traceries and carvings used to be gilded, hence it’s name – the House of Gold.

Highlights of the collection are Mantegna’s St Sebastian, fresco fragments by Titian and Giorgione that used to decorate the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (formerly the main post office and now owned by Benetton and being converted into a large shop).

Be sure to enjoy the views on the balconies on the first and second floor, and the gorgeous courtyard with a beautiful well-head.

Second floor balcony of the Ca' d'Oro on the Grand Canal

Then, head by vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore. 

San Giorgio Maggiore

This Palladian complex of San Giorgio Maggiore includes a church, a campanile (which you should climb for magnificent views), and a monastery including cloisters, a refectory, library and garden.  It’s hard to believe that so much serenity can exist just a short hop across the water from the busy Piazza di San Marco.

Giardini Pubblici

Next, hop on a vaporetto and descend at Arsenale.  You could take a small detour to your right to peek inside the Giardini Pubblici – Napoleon razed this part of Venice to create these enormous gardens.  Beyond the public gardens are the gardens of the Biennale of art housing national pavilions of around 16 countries.  However, you can only access the Giardini della Biennale when the art and architecture biennales are being held.

Museo Storico Navale

Pop your head into Venice’s maritime museum to see a replica of the Doge’s ornate Bucintoro (the original was destroyed by the French when they conquered Venice).  My favourite exhibit is Peggy Guggenheim’s gondola.

Arsenale gates

Next, walk up to the gates of the Arsenale.  This area is still patrolled by the Italian Navy but you can stand at the Renaissance gates and gaze at the extraordinary trophies of war that protect its entry – two lions pillaged from near Athens in 1687 and another bald, upright lion with runic carvings.  He is thought to have been carved by Scandinavian mercenaries who in 1040 fought for the Byzantine empire.

Gates to the Arsenale, Castello

La Pietà

Continue to walk along the Riva degli Schiavoni.  You’ll pass the Metropole hotel.  Turn right and walk a short distance between the Metropole hotel and La Pieta.  You’ll see the wall of the Metropole’s bar incorporates a foundling wheel, which allowed mothers to anonymously leave their children at the orphanage that used to operate on the site of the Metropole hotel.

Pop your head into the La Pietà, somewhat erroneously known as Vivaldi’s church - he worked as choirmaster at La Pietà from 1704-1740 and composed many works for the choir – but the present structure was built from 1745-1760 so Vivaldi never actually set foot inside this newer building.   The church is mostly used for concerts, and it’s well worth popping your head inside to see the 1755 ceiling by Tiepolo, Triumph of Faith.

San Zaccaria

We’ll change the pace at San Zaccaria with Bellini’s Madonna with Child and Saints, some 15^th century frescoes by Vivarini and an atmospheric and slightly eerie waterlogged crypt where eight doges are buried.

For things to do tonight, please refer to my suggestions from yesterday’s itinerary.

Your first visit to Venice - Part 7 Sunday

What I'm reading: A Venetian Theory of Heaven - Part 3

‘She had visited Paris for the pictures the French had stolen’

William Riviere, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Sceptre, 1992

The work which came immediately to my mind when I read this sentence in A Venetian Theory of Heaven, was Paolo Veronese’s (1528 – 1588) Wedding of Cana which today hangs in the Denon Wing of the Louvre Museum (in the same room as the Mona Lisa) after it was looted by Napoleon from the refectory of the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore.

The refectory was built to a design by Palladio and completed in 1562.  The friars commissioned the painting from Veronese in 1562, insisting that the work be monumental and Veronese certainly delivered– the work originally measured 70m² (it is the largest work in the collection of the Louvre museum). 

 Veronese worked on the painting for 15 months, completing it in 1563.  The Wedding of Cana marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Palladio and Veronese – they later worked together on the Villa Barbaro at Maser.  The work was feted around Europe – Cosimo III de’ Medici claimed that it was worth the trip to Venice just to see this painting.

The Wedding of Cana hung in the refectory for 235 years until Napoleon ordered that the work be confiscated.  It was torn from the wall, cut in half for the journey, rolled up like a carpet and shipped to Paris in 1797.  As a result, the painting suffered from significant paint loss and it underwent restoration in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but records from these works are incomplete.

 Napoleon, of course, literally ‘captured Venice’, when he forced the city to surrender in 1797. 

During the French Republican and Napoleonic eras, looting became a military tactic by victorious armies.  Napoleon established the first official military division dedicated to seizing and shipping captured artworks.  Specially-trained personnel would follow behind the army to inventory, pack, and ship art. 

Stealing art from vanquished countries was a morale booster, and looted masterpieces were moved to the recently converted Louvre museum, where Napoleon’s art advisor Dominique Vivant Denon became the museum’s first director (remember which wing of the Louvre museum houses this work?).

 In 1815, when the allies who had beaten Napoleon negotiated the redistribution of confiscated works of art, the size of The Wedding of Cana presented a conundrum, and the negotiators settled on an unsatisfactory exchange of this masterpiece.  The Wedding of Cana remained at the Louvre, and in its stead, Venice received The Pharisee’s Banquet with Mary Magdalene at Christ’s Feet by French artist Charles Le Brun (now at the Accademia in Venice).

In 1992, whilst undergoing restoration, the Louvre was embarrassed by two separate incidents with The Wedding of Cana – it was first spattered by water from a leaking air vent and just a few days later, as museum workers were raising the 1.5 ton painting to a higher position on the wall, one of the supports collapsed and the entire painting fell.  The accident tore five holes in the painting. 

The Benedictine monastery at San Giorgio Maggiore was destroyed under Napoleon.  It was later used by the Austrian army.  The island became a free port and was later home to the Venice artillery, and a new harbour was built in 1812.

 In 1949, Count Vittorio Cini established the Giorgio Cini Foundation in memory of his son, Giorgio Cini, who was killed in an airplane accident at Cannes.  The original purpose of the Foundation was to restore the former monastery and to create a cultural centre for Venice.

 The Fondazione Giorgio Cini has advocated for years for the return of this masterpiece to Venice.  According to reports, they have been told that whilst intellectually the painting belongs in the refectory of the monastery, politically, it can never be returned.

 On 11 September 2007 (the 210^th anniversary of the looting of the painting by French troops) a full scale facsimile copy of the painting was unveiled in its original location at San Giorgio Maggiore.  The copy was commissioned by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

 The Louvre museum website’s notation for the painting merely states that this work ‘entered the Louvre in 1798’. 

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 4

 ‘London for a ceiling fromCa’ Contarini’