Archives: Venetian Stories
-
An almost unknown painter
The paintings of Gabriel Bella are well-known and often used, but very little is known about Gabriel Bella.
-
Beheading bulls
During carnival, on Fat Thursday, the Venetians executed a bull in front of the Doge’s Palace. It was beheaded by sword.
-
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.
-
Thomas Philologus Ravennas
The statue on the façade of the San Zulian church is not of a saint. It is of a physician who got rich selling remedies for syphilis.
-
The Battle of Lepanto
The Battle of Lepanto was a great victory for Venice and its allies, but even if Venice won a battle, it still lost the war.
-
Campo Santa Giustina
In Venice, even the most dull and featureless square is full of stories, if one knows where to look
-
Santa Lucia
Why is the railroad station in Venice called Santa Lucia, who was she, and where’s her church?
-
Road rage
Traffic has always been bad in Grand Canal in front of the Santa Lucia railroad station, and as an old engraving shows, that is nothing new.
-
The Plague Stone of Poveglia
The island of Poveglia in the Venetian lagoon is one of the most haunted in the world. This has been well-known since the early 2000s.
