Arsenale stop on Colonna,
Garibaldi street
Venice.
June 23
The MUSEUM AT THE CA D’ORO
There were magnificent buildings everywhere, one was the Academia, the Art Gallery of Venice and it went on and on. When we did disembark the water taxi it was to visit the Ca d’Oro, a museum that housed a private collection gifted to the State. It was housed not in a museum but a private home. There was a floor of every kind of marble. There were present day marbles but some that had been used in antiquity, or similar more modern marbles, in order to re- create the effect of ancient floors. It made patterns of circles and from that rose columns and outside the long room was the Grand Canal and a private jetty.
PAINTINGS AND STATUES
Upstairs were paintings and statues, some furniture pieces, but mostly pieces from the 15th and 16th ceneturies Italian art, the most famous being Mantegna’s St Sebastian. My favourite was an icon of the Vergin Mary and child, with that simplicity of ancient art prior to the renaissance. Another favourite was a picture of three purveyors of the coin exchange because the central figure reminds me strongly of a family member, dressed in sixteenth century dress and beard.
GRAND CANAL LUNCH
We ate lunch sitting high above the Grand Canal with the world going by in boats and with us looking down on the excitement and the continual motion of the sea everywhere.
From there we walked further into this area passing a lovely closed church with a large statue of a monk in front of it, St Sarpo. We were travelling on to the Ghetto.
Everywhere around the central square the buildings are tall and ancient. The buildings are pink like sugar, brown, some peeling and yet the signs of age are beautiful in this city. The sun continued to shine and the guide was funny and entertaining.
INTERNAL GARDENS
There we saw one of the internal gardens in the city, where gardens are intensely private affairs, one just sees a few trees from a distance, drooping over a tall wall, sometimes with pink blooms, and occasionally as one approaches Garibaldi Street restaurants there’s the smell of jasmine or seringa.
EXPRESS WATER TAXI
Travelling home by boat in the rush hour, there were boats everywhere. We were on an express water taxi which felt like the driver was throwing the boat into the wharfs with a crash and grinding the gears and dashing off again like a wild horse. We left the dock, dashed off again, throwing the boat into the heaving turquoise sea and the rush of the water traffic.
BIENNALE GARDENS
We walked home through the Biennale gardens, with tall Cypress trees and a grey statue of Garibaldi. At night in the gathering evening we came across the white Campanale that one can see from sea as one approaches Venice. Beside it is San Pietro and San Anna which is falling down. In the nearby area there are streets that are hushed and houses that are empty, though there is some rejuvenation going on. History and the present collide.
THUNDER STORM
Tonight, there is a thunder storm and it is raining heavily. Lovely to be here.
