Ah, Venice...

Le Saboteur

Active member
Joosse said:
I was just wondering, what language will the merchant of Venice be performed in?

Officially confirmed as being performed in English.

In other news,there's a good article on the Jewish Ghetto over at The New York Times that's worth reading.

The answer to my question was revealed inside one of these: the sumptuous Scuola Grande Spagnola (Great Spanish Synagogue), possibly the work of Baldassare Longhena, the renowned 17th-century architect of Santa Maria della Salute. After we had gazed our fill at the elliptical coffered ceiling and the black-columned pediment that frames the ark of the covenant; after we had craned our necks to glimpse the cherry wood balustrade and diamond-hatched panels that screen the upstairs women?s gallery; after our eyes had bathed in the silver gleam of candelabra and the soft glow of crimson-curtained bottle-glass window panes, Ms. Crepaldi pointed to the brass plaques affixed to the pews. ?These are the names of families who pay to rent their own bench sections,? she told us. ?These families still pray here. This synagogue is used in summer, and in winter they switch to the Scuola Levantina because it?s heated. The Venetian Jewish community may be small, but it?s still strong.?

Full article: 500 Years of Jewish Life in Venice
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
corto_800_01.jpg


Last month, to little fanfare, the United Nations placed Venice on its list of places that are in danger of losing their UNESCO World Heritage status. Of the 1,000-odd cities on the list, only Dresden has been stripped of its status.

Can We Save Venice Before it's Too Late?

Salvatore Settis said:
Just along the Grand Canal, Venice?s main waterway, the last 15 years have seen the closure of state institutions, judicial offices, banks, the German Consulate, medical practices and stores to make way for 16 new hotels.

Salvatore Settis said:
Unesco?s ultimatum stems from several longstanding problems. First, the increasing imbalance between the number of the city?s inhabitants (which plummeted from 174,808 in 1951 to 56,311 in 2014, the most recent year for which numbers are available) and the tourists. Proposed large-scale development, including new deepwater navigation channels and a subway running under the lagoon, would hasten erosion and strain the fragile ecological-urban system that has grown up around Venice.

Day trippers are a definite blight on Venice's history and architecture, but I really wonder what types of manufacturing jobs could be created in and around the city that won't hasten its ruin through pollution and the logistical problems of getting heavy materials in and out of the city. Fincantieri Shipyards in Trieste, perhaps ironically, has helped build those massive cruise ships that are threatening the lagoon's overall ecosystem.

An excerpt from Settis' book:

If Venice Dies said:
In order to evoke Venice, in the context of a culture that is easily pleased, one merely has to bring up a canal, or a building whose image is reflected in its waters, a doorway or two giving directly onto the water, or even just a few boats moving alongside some houses. The opposite, however, does not happen: as far as I?m aware, nobody has ever called Venice the ?Stockholm of the Adriatic.? The image of the one and only Venice is far too vivid for that, in fact it overwhelms other associations and is a touchstone. Multiplied by its myriad evocations, is the idea of Venice reinforced by this process, or does it instead splinter? Is the widespread fortune its name has enjoyed (which some argue is the most copied name in the world, even beating its closest competitors, Paris and Rome) linked to its picturesque appearance, or is it instead caused by the subtle interest it inspires due to its unusual take on urban living? Does it implicitly invite a desire to imitate its beauty, or evoke the tendency to consider it exotic and unlikely (and therefore ?entertaining?)?

The full excerpt can be found over here.
 
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