Grand Canal of Venice
The Grand Canal of Venice is one the most wonderful constructions in the world. No other city affords a spectacle so fine, so bizarre, so fairy-like. As remarkable bits of architecture, perhaps, can be found elsewhere, but nowhere located under such picturesque conditions. This is a stupendous mix of history of Venice + city of canals.
In the Grand Canal of Venice out of all Venice canals each palace has a mirror in which to gaze at its beauty. The superb reality is doubled by a charming reflection. The water lovingly caresses the feet of these beautiful facades, which a white light kisses on the forehead, and cradles them in a double sky. The small boats, gondolas and big ships which are able to ascend it seem to be made fast for the express purpose of serving as set-offs or ground-plans for the convenience of the decorators. It is not a surprise that many visiting the canals ask for: the price double rooms overlooking the canal in Venice or holidays Venice near Canal Grande or even hotel Carlton grand canal Venice.
Each bit of wall in the Canal Grande of Venice narrates a story: every house is a palace; at each stroke of the oars the gondolier mentions a name which was as well known in the times of the Crusades as it is to-day; and this continues both to left and right for a distance of more than half a league.
A list of these palaces, not of all, but the most remarkable: Pierre Lombard, Scamozzi, Sansovino, Sebastiano Mazzoni, Sammichelli, the great architect of Verona; Selva, Domenico Rossi, Visentini, have drawn the plans and directed the construction of these princely dwellings, without reckoning the unknown artists of the Middle Ages who built the most picturesque and most romantic of them–those which give Venice its stamp and its originality.
On both banks, facades altogether charming and beautifully diversified succeed one another without interruption. After an architecture of the Renaissance with its columns comes a palace of the Middle Ages in Gothic Arab style, of which the Ducal Palace is the prototype, with its balconies, lancet windows, trefoils, and acroteria.
Further along is a facade adorned with marble placques of various colors, garnished with medallions and consoles; then a great rose-colored wall in which is cut a large window with columnets; all styles are found there–the Byzantine, the Saracen, the Lombard, the Gothic, the Roman, the Greek, and even the Rococo; the column and the columnet; the lancet and the semicircle; the fanciful capital, full of birds and of flowers, brought from Acre or from Jaffa; the Greek capital found in Athenian ruins; the mosaic and the bas-relief; the classic severity and elegant fantasy of the Renaissance.
It is an immense gallery open to the sky, where one can study from the bottom of his gondola the art of seven or eight centuries. What treasures of genius, talent, and money have been expended on this space which may be traversed in less than a quarter of an hour! What tremendous artists, but also what intelligent and munificent patrons! What a pity that the patricians who knew how to achieve such beautiful things no longer exist save on the canvases of Titian, of Tintoretto, and du Moro!
[youtube mK-yees6rWk]