Venice is the only city on earth going backwards

The peril in Venice is the people trying to save it. But save exactly what for precisely whom? Venice is a corpse. It died in 1797 with the last, preposterous old Doge eased out by the French. Napoleon then insulted the Venetians by calling the Piazza San Marco Europe’s finest drawing-room. Now the drawing-room has become an undisciplined, overpriced, fatigued international playpen. In 1494 an itinerant Milanese canon, Pietro Casola, said there was nothing new to say about Venice. I’m not so sure. They say Venice defeats cynicism. Let’s see.

Those cute street signs in the vernacular? I daresay there are study groups in South Kensington which practise the old language over an ombra or two of Waitrose prosecco, but Venetians themselves are quite happy with modern Italian. Since most ‘Venetians’ live on the mainland, they have to. The signs were only put there very recently by a local authority with an eye to tourism’s lust for folklorico.