The writings on this site are split into several categories, but they’re all listed here together, chronologically, newest first.
The categories are Articles, Blog posts, Venetian Stories (newsletters), Lists and translations from Curiosità Veneziane.
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Sestiere Dorsoduro
The Sestiere Dorsoduro is the southernmost part of Venice along the Giudecca canal.
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Happy New Year – but not yet
While we celebrate New Year on January 1st, for entire period of the Republic of Venice the Venetian state celebrated New Year on March 1st.
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When you could hang for wearing a fake beard
A spate of killings in the 1100s in Venice by assassins wearing false full beards, led a ban under capital punishment for wearing fake full beards.
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Ghetto – A Venetian word
The now almost extinct Venetian language was once widely spoken around Europe, and some Venetian words have survived.
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Bad air will get you sick
Bad air was believed to be a major cause of sickness in the past, based on Aristotle’s idea of miasma as the cause of disease.
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Runes in Venice
Who would expect to find runes in Venice? Yet, in central Venice a statue of a lion is covered in runic inscriptions
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St Nicholas — protector of sailors, virgins and reindeer
St Nicholas is celebrated on December 6th in much of Christianity. Associated with sailors and gift-giving, he is the origin of Santa Claus.
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A Drawing of Venice from c. 1350
Dr Sandra Toffolo of the University of St Andrews has found a drawing of Venice from the 1300s in a manuscript in Florence
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A day in the Lagoon
What do you see when you go shopping for ninety kg of dog food in Venice? The Venetian Lagoon is full of overlooked small wonders.
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Festa della Salute
The Festa della Salute each year on November 21st is an important holiday in Venice. The event celebrates the end of the plague in 1631.