The Venetian Experience
The Owl
Vol. 2,
Issue 18
May 8 , 2008
Baltimore,
Maryland
Dear Inquiring Traveler,
Venice is our destination today, as it was 300 years ago for the British gentlemen on the Grand Tour. Now, as then, the city has a lot to offer, from much praised art to the pleasures of the carnival.
But most of what happened to these youths in Venice wasn’t fit to be mentioned in letters home. Read on to find out how the young tourists found a way to meet their parents’ expectations without giving up the worldly temptations on offer in this corner of the Continent.
Editor,
The Owl
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Venice in
the time of Canaletto: the Piazza San Marco, the gondolas, and the
huge state galley—known as the Bucentaur—that the Doge would board
every year to celebrate the wedding between Venice and the sea.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. |
The Venetian Experience (Part 1)
by Catherine Lapp
Venice in the time of the Grand Tour was a city of pleasure. The Carnival offered infinite opportunities for dancing, drinking, gambling, and much more for young men well disguised under a mask hundreds of miles away from parental supervision. There were enough prostitutes to satisfy the needs of both tourists and locals—as many as 20,000 according to Thomas Coryat, an Oxford-educated scholar who set forth on the Grand Tour in 1608 and duly set about investigating all aspects of Venetian culture on offer.
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No surprise, then, that Venice became a must-see for most Grand Tourists where they earned a reputation for debauchery and ignorance. The Venetians, in turn, made money out of their visitors by charging outrageous prices for food, lodging, and trinkets—now as then, tourists were advised to barter.
Shopping for Souvenirs
Most British youngsters were wise enough not to over-emphasize the earthly pleasures of the Tour in their diaries and letters. These would remain part of their private memory of the foreign experience. They needed, however, appropriate souvenirs to bring home. They needed memorabilia to show the exotic grandeur of the City of the Doges—its gothic palaces, shaded squares, countless churches, and that unique light reflecting on the green lagoon and canals that even the most dissolute tourist wouldn’t have failed to notice.
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In a city like Rome, popular souvenirs included antiques—original or fake, purchased or stolen—and paintings. As there were basically no classic antiques to see or buy in Venice, tourists sought paintings. But how to meet local artists producing works worth hanging in your parents’ country estate when you spend your time partying and don’t speak the local language?
A British Agent
An astute British businessman provided a convenient solution. His name was Joseph Smith and he made a fortune as a middleman providing views of Venice to English gentlemen on the tour. To be fair, we should immediately mention that he was also a fine art connoisseur and a passionate collector himself who spent most of his life in Venice and eventually became the British consul there.
Smith acted as the agent of a renowned veduta painter, Antonio Canaletto. He would collect orders from British gentlemen, transmit them to Canaletto, make sure the paintings were of quality—and authentic—and have the works safely shipped to England. Canaletto churned paintings out by the dozens and acquired a greater fame in England than in his native Venice.
But he was by no means a mediocre artist simply mass-producing second-rate souvenirs for poorly educated tourists. On the contrary, Canaletto was one of the great painters of his time, as a visit to the European galleries at the Baltimore Museum of Art recently reminded us. Join us next week to learn more.
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