Venice and its Splendor

My hotel in Venice is just wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone heading to Venice.  It’s just the kind of retreat one needs after a day of crowds, noise, confusion and expense that has been slathered with a thick and fluffy buttercream frosting of beauty, history, inspiration and glory.  Venice is a very special place.  It is easy to understand how it became a center for wealth and debauchery (those go together often… you don’t even need to read a history book to discover that).  What an ingenious notion… make a center for oceanic trade and commerce right smack dab IN the ocean.  THAT was brilliant.  And after the centuries pass we are still receiving the benefits.  Honestly, Venetian design, architecture and visual arts are very specific.  And for me, with my penchant for velvet, pearls, jewels and …. anchovies, well, I would have fit in perfectly back in the 17^th/18^th centuries.

Just so you know that travel is not all wine and roses, though: 

I began my day very strategically thinking, okay, I’ll just go to the old Jewish Ghetto and look at the synagogues and the Hebrew museum.  THAT will keep me from shopping in the morning.  Well THAT didn’t happen …. Because you see, it’s loaded with glorious antique stores and I was in heaven getting some antique jewelry, a yard of very old Fortuny fabric, and a hand-colored print.

But aside from shopping, the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo has a fascinating history.  There has been a Jewish population in Venice since the 12^th century and when the Spanish Inquisition forced many Jewish communities out of Spain, many of them came to Venice because of its tolerance of a variety of religious practice in the city.  However, in the early 16^th century they were segregated into this area of the city and given a strict sunset curfew.  Beautiful synagogues were built and a Hebrew school and the area is essentially its own little island.

From there I walked to the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Miracoli.  This church was built out of marble and other building materials that locals procured from San Marco ‘slag heaps.’  It was a truly inspired act that had as its sole intention to build a church worthy to house a miraculous image of the Madonna.  The artist Nicolo di Pietro painted this work and also built a little outdoor shrine to hold it.  One day the painting miraculously began weeping.  Surely this was a sign that Our Lady wanted better digs.  And thus the church was born.  And…. It is splendid, divine, inspired.

From there I began the walk south toward Piazza San Marco where you exit the tight and crowded confines of the medieval maze and it opens up to an enormous space full of light and marble, shining against the backdrop of the sea.  It’s also full of tourists, so be warned. 

And then so many churches... Chiesa di San Moise which features a spectacular sculpture behind the altar of Moses receiving the 10 commandments in high Baroque magnificence, the Chiesa di San Zulian and the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Giglio and the Chiesa de SS Apostoli... full of Tintorettos, Rubens, Veronese, Tiepolo...

Let's just end on that note:

This is in the Chiesa SS Apostoli (If I remember correctly :)  It is Tiepolo's Santa Lucia Receiving First Communion.  1747.