A NEW GRAND TOUR

VENICE THROUGH THE EYES OF HER MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ADMIRERS

VENEZIA RACCONTATA ATTRAVERSO LO SGUARDO DEI SUOI PIÙ ILLUSTRI AMMIRATORI text Virginia Mammoli

“Venice! Is there a city more admired, more celebrated, more sung by poets, more desired by lovers, more visited and more illustrious? Venice! Is there a name in human language that has made people dream more than this?”

This is how writer Guy de Maupassant described one of the most unmissable destinations of the Grand Tour, and proof of this are the many famous personalities - including painters, writers, poets, musicians and philosophers - who have visited, inhabited and, of course, loved it. So it is that love stories that have gone down in history and great masterpieces of world art had their origin in Venice. In these pages we make a roundup of her best-known admirers. Their words and their places. A more than ever fascinating picture of a city unique in the world.

“Venezia! Esiste una città più ammirata, più celebrata, più cantata dai poeti, più desiderata dagli innamorati, più visitata e più illustre? Venezia! Esiste un nome nelle lingue umane che abbia fatto sognare più di questo?” Metà tra le più imperdibili del Grand Tour, è così che la descrive scrittore Guy de Maupassant e ne sono riprova i tantissimi personaggi importanti - tra pittori, scrittori, poeti, musicisti, filosofi… - che l’hanno visitata, abitata e, naturalmente, amata. È così che a Venezia sono nati amori passati alla storia e grandi capolavori dell’arte mondiale. In queste pagine facciamo una carrellata dei suoi ammiratori più conosciuti. Le loro parole e i loro luoghi. Un quadro più che mai affascinante di una città unica al mondo.

RICHARD WAGNER

“One sleepless night [...] I heard the ancient song of the gondoliers for the first time. It seemed to me that the call, hoarse and plaintive, came from the Rialto. […] These impressions remained with me until the completion of the second act of Tristan and perhaps suggested the drawling sounds of the English horn at the beginning of the third act.”

The composer, who died at Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, wrote part of his masterpiece at Palazzo Giustinian (ph. Mona Dennaoui)

LORD BYRON

“I was in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; a palace on one side, a prison on the other; I saw his profile emerge from the water as if at the touch of a magician’s wand”. The English poet lived for a few years in Venice, in Palazzo Mocenigo. It was due to him that the famous bridge became known as the Bridge of Sighs. The place to which he was closest, however, was perhaps the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, where he went to learn Armenia (ph. Frenjamin Benklin)

JOHN RUSKIN

“Thank God I am here! It is the Paradise of cities. […] I feel fresh and young when my foot is on these pavements, and the contours of St. Mark’s excite me.” Ruskin dedicated The Stones of Venice, three volumes on art and architecture, to his beloved Venice (ph. Francesco La Corte)

“The mansions arranged along either bank of the canal made one think of objects of nature, but of a nature which seemed to have created its works with a human imagination.

”Inspired by Ruskin, Marcel Proust also visited La Serenissima, which he described several times in A la Recherche du temps perdu (ph. Liubov Ilchuk)

Ernest Hemingway

“How can you live in New York when there is Venice and Paris?”

The famous writer deeply loved the Veneto and especially Venice, which he frequented often and wrote about in his book Across the River and into the Trees. He stayed at the Hotel Gritti and was a regular at Harry’s Bar and at the Locanda Cipriani on the island of Torcello, both owned by Giuseppe Cipriani (ph. Matteo Bertolin)

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM

“It has always been taken for granted that Venice is the ideal city for a honeymoon, but it is a serious mistake. Living in Venice, or simply visiting it, means falling in love with it and there is no place left in your heart for anything else”. The famous collector’s private home has become one of the major museums in Venice, with the works of the many great artists who passed through there

CHARLES DICKENS

“There is nothing that struck me in my life like Venice. It’s the wonder of the world. […] I arrived there in the evening, and the feeling […] is now part of me for the rest of my existence.“

Like many famous people of yesterday and today, the writer stayed at the Hotel Danieli, custodian and matchmaker of two famous love stories, between Gabriele D’Annunzio and Eleonora Duse and between Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

“If I had to find a word that could substitute ‘music’, I would think only of Venice:”

The house where the German philosopher lived in Venice is located in Palazzo Berlendis, in the Cannaregio district, at Fondamente Nove

TIZIANO SCARPA

“Venice is a fish. Look at it on a map. It looks like a vast sole spread out on the seabed. […] the bridge that connects it to terra firma looks like a fishing line - Venice looks as if it swallowed the bait.”

A small digression to today, with what became the iconic observation of the Venetian writer

JOHANN

“It was written in the Book of Fate that at 5 in the afternoon of the 28th day of September in the year 1786, I should see Venice for the first time, and shortly after, set foot in this wonderful city.”

One of the most famous Grand Tour ‘globetrotters’, he certainly could not fail to visit Venice, the great protagonist of his carnet de voyage. Of Piazza San Marco he wrote “there is nothing that can be compared to it.”

THOMAS MANN

“Here it is once again before him, the indescribable landing place, the dazzling ensemble of fantastic buildings that the Serenissima offered to the admiring gaze of the arriving navigator: the light marvel of the Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, the two columns on the shore with the lion and the saint.”

We owe a journey to Venice to one of his most famous works, Death in Venice