Is there anything original left to say about Venice? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop the books from coming, tied in, as they mostly now are, with a television series.
Is there anything original left to say about Venice? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop the books from coming, tied in, as they mostly now are, with a television series. In this context I dream of programme-makers courageous enough to eschew tacky carnival masks or mood-shots of gondola beaks reflected in muddy ripples, with Vivaldi mandolins wittering cosily over the soundtrack, but it aint gonna happen, alas. How about the areas of La Bella Dominante most visitors are too rushed or incurious to explore? When was the last time you saw a camera crew on the Giudecca or up by the Arsenale, zooming in on the Madonna dell’Orto’s apocalyptic Tintorettos or those wacky marble tapestries adorning the Gesuiti? They might even film a few ordinary Venetians, among the handful still clinging on along the canals, engaged in the increasingly arduous business of trying to live modern lives inside Europe’s biggest historical theme-park.
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