Every stone in Venice tells a story. Recently I stumbled upon a stone telling a story of gaming. It had incised a Nine men’s Morris game board
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An ancient game board in Venice
Recent maintenance work on the Santa Maria Assunta basilica has uncovered ‘new’ frescoes. Hitherto unknown, they can throw some fresh light on the earliest history of Venice. The ‘new’ frescos are from the 9th/10th century CE, so they are actually quite old. The frescoes appear on the side walls, above the current ceiling, which dates […]
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Antonio Moro and the Somachio
Lazzaretto Nuovo — the plague island For three centuries it was the main quarantine station guarding the city of Venice from the bubonic plague. Merchandise as well as people were kept in quarantine, and the goods underwent a series of treatments to cleanse it. The people doing this risky work, referred to with the Venetian […]
I’m not doing any walks for a while here in Venice, as we’re all in corona virus lockdown. We’ll all need to sit this crisis out, and hope for the best. Hopefully, this will soon be over and we’ll be able to travel and meet again without fear.
A photo gallery of some of the many photos I have from the island of Poveglia in the Venetian lagoon.
The island of Poveglia is now famous for ghost stories made up by American television. However, there’s a lot more to say about the island than fictitious stories of ghosts and crazy doctors.
A bridge at San Canciano is called the “bridge of the hung and quartered”. Nearby hangs some hooks on the wall, but nobody knows what they were for.
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Fondamenta de la Tana
Fondamenta de la Tana and Rio de la Tana seem inconspicuous but the name reveals ancient trading connections to the Black Sea.