Tens of thousands of tourists visit Venice every day, with the desire to be able to see some of those renowned places that everyone has heard about. Four of these places are very close to each other: Piazza San Marco; the Basilica of San Marco; the Doge’s Palace; and the Bridge of Sighs. Places so famous that everything next to them becomes almost invisible. Here, a good part of that Venice that I have defined as “hidden” in the title becomes invisible, even if in reality it is highly visible. Well, today they want to show you some details.
Venice has been for centuries the heart of a cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic culture. City of traders who already brought the flavors of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to Europe in the 14th century, Venice was a city where smells, colors and flavors spoke multiple languages.
A city where every corner was decorated, sculpted, painted, and where every work tells a story. Stories that, in the frenzy of visits to be made in a short time, pass before everyone’s eyes without being noticed, or hide in corners where tourists do not pass.
Today I want to tell you about some of these invisible works of art.
Drunk Noah. To talk about this sculpture we have to start from one of the places in Venice where tourists take the most photos: the Ponte Della Paglia (Straw Bridge). There are millions of tourists who stop over the bridge every year, a stone’s throw from Piazza San Marco, to take a photo (often a selfie) to take home as a souvenir of their trips to Venice.
The bridge is in fact the best position from which to photograph the Bridge of Sighs. So famous that few notice the sculpture to their right, a 14th-century sculpture of Drunken Noah. The sculpture takes up a passage from the Bible (Book of Genesis IX 18-25) in which it is said that after the Universal Flood, “Now Noah, a cultivator of the land, began to plant a vineyard. Having drunk the wine, he got drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent”
The story tells us that the younger son Cam was horrified by this, and warned the two brothers Seth and Lafet who, given their father’s condition, covered him with their cloak, while Cam kept away.
The episode of the Drunken Noah is told in numerous sculptures and paintings, and this is one of the most important artistic ones. Unfortunately, due to her position, everyone sees it but no one notices.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of bas-reliefs and sculptures just around the Doge’s Palace, and each one has its own story, a meaning, a reason why it was carved right there. Have you seen any of them and want to tell us about them?
The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs is another such invisible sculpture. Brought to Venice from Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) in 1204, this sculpture fully represents the vision of power in the third century, when the power of the Roman empire was divided between four (Tetrarch means lord of a quarter of the empire). In fact, the sculpture was made at the end of the third century AD, when the Roman Empire was divided into four parts.
The sculpture is located in the corner of the wall where the Basilica of San Marco connects with the Doge’s Palace, and thousands of tourists pass by it every day. To understand where it is located, look at the 360° photo below
And after two invisible gems, hidden in the middle of the crowd, we move on to a gem you need to look for. Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo is not on your street, it is in that part of central Venice where everyone passes to go “somewhere else”. When you find it in front of you, coming out of a couple of very narrow streets that connect with Campo Manin, you cannot believe your eyes. A gem difficult even to photograph, so tight is the space surrounding this ancient tower. It is certainly not the majestic Campanile di San Marco, but from above the staircase you can admire the roofs of all of Venice.
The Bovolo, in Venetian, is the snail, whose spiral shape resembles that of the spiral stairs which in Italian bear the same name: “Scale a Chiocciola”.
There is rarely a queue to visit the staircase. When I visited it, the ticket also included a visit to a small contemporary art exhibition, an additional benefit for a pleasant afternoon.
As I said again, in Venice (and beyond) you must always remember to look [also] up, otherwise you will miss most of the journey. Want to know why? Try reading They are watching you - A photo-walk in Venice looking up
I am sure that Venice is not the only city that has places that, despite being in front of everyone’s eyes, nobody notices. What about your city? Is there any place of this type that you want to tell us about? Why don’t you do it here?
