Tag: 1600s
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Episode 25 — The Venetian Carnival
Pigs and bulls lose in the alleyways, wooden castles smashed with maces, human towers and funambulists. The Venetian carnival was quite unlike the modern replica.
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Beheading bulls
During carnival, on Fat Thursday, the Venetians executed a bull in front of the Doge’s Palace. It was beheaded by sword.
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Miracle cure or snake oil?
When the English gentleman John Evelyn left Venice in 1646, after almost a year in Venice and Padua, he had more stuff than when he had arrived.
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Episode 23 — Venice treacle — the cure-all remedy
Venice produced and exported Theriac, an ancient wonder medicine for just about every ailment imaginable. It was a flourishing business for centuries, and an important part of the Venetian economy.
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Episode 21 — The Plague Doctor
The well-known image of the plague doctor with the beaked mask doesn’t really have a lot of support in our sources. Did he even exist?
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Episode 19 — Venice and the plague – part 3
During the 1400s, Venice had created defences against the recurring outbreaks of the plague, and they kept Venice mostly safe for the following centuries. Mostly safe.
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Episode 16 — The game of Pallone
Proper ball games for decent people? Not all ball games are equal; some are more equal than others.
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Episode 8 — Decline and fall
The 1600s and 1700s were a period of slow decline for Venice, until the Republic of Venice fell to Napoleon in 1797.
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Nightingale Muzak
Songbirds were an important part of the shopping experience in Venice in the 1600s and 1700s.
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404 Doctor Not Found
The iconic cloaked and beaked plague doctor is often associated with Venice, but there is no documentation that the figure ever existed in Venice.