Venice: Pure City полностью

What are the colours of the most serene city? There are of course the sacred colours, Bellini’s colours, blue and gold. Many of the public buildings of Venice were decorated with a blue sky of night irradiated by stars of gold. Upon the Pala d’Oro, the richly metalled altar screen in Saint Mark’s, panels of translucent blue enamel were set within golden borders. It was heaven’s colour. Blue is the colour of calm and serenity, adopted in the most serene city. In the paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the most favoured colour was a deep blue. There was the violet blue of the sky, and the greenish blue of the soft distance. The colours of salmon, magenta, orange and white are reflected upon the blue and green waters. The sails of the fishing boats, upon the lagoon through the centuries, were orange or crimson.

There is also green, so much wished for in a city of stone. Bellini luxuriated in deep green. The Venetian builders loved green marble. It was an intimation of the natural world, so that we can speak of forests of marble springing up in the city. It was a reminder of the sap and the leaf, of the miracle of rebirth. Ruskin noted that one of the favourite chords of Venetian colour “was the sweet and solemn harmony of purple with various greens.” There is the pink of dawn, too, and the pink of evening. Henry James described it as “a faint, shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright sea-light seems to flush with it and the pale whiteish-green of lagoon and canal to drink it in.”

Is this a just description of the water, pale whiteish-green? What is in any case the colour of water? The colours of the sea approaching Venice were once distinguished by the porti into which they issued. Thus the waters from the Lido were red, those from Malamocco were green, and those from Chioggia were purple. What is the colour of the waters in the canals and in the lagoon? They have variously been described as jade green, lilac, pale blue, brown, smoky pink, lavender, violet, heliotrope, dove grey. After a storm the colour changes as the water becomes aerated. On a hot afternoon the waters may seem orange. The colours of the sky, and the colours of the city, are refracted in little ovals of ochre and blue. It is all colours and no colour. It reflects, and does not own, colour. It becomes what it beholds.

The city needs people. It demands to be seen. The pilgrims of the Middle Ages were the first tourists. They were given guided tours, and certain state officials had the task of inspecting taverns and checking merchandise sold to tourists. These inspectors were also supposed to lead the strangers to the most expensive shops, where they could buy glass beads or silver crosses. There were other guides and agents known as tolomazi who offered a range of services from interpreting to money changing. The owners of the various galleys set up booths in Saint Mark’s Square, each with the flag of their ship prominently displayed; the masters of these galleys offered snacks of food and glasses of wine to the passing custom while “each abused the other and defamed him to the pilgrims.” The pilgrims themselves were lodged in especial taverns and hostelries such as the Little Horse and the Lobster. It was said of some crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, that they never got further than the Luna Hotel. The Luna was on the quay down from the piazzetta. It was full of guests by 1319. The White Lion opened its doors five years later.

Venice has been the cynosure of all eyes for almost a thousand years; some figures suggest that at the beginning of the twenty-first century it attracts three million residential tourists and seven million “day trippers” each year. Other estimates vary from fourteen to sixteen million annual visitors. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that millions upon millions of people enter a city that has no more than sixty thousand inhabitants. At any one time there are more strangers than citizens. This is not an unusual situation, however, since by the 1840s tourists began to outnumber residents. Yet the imbalance has never been so large. It has been claimed that in twenty-five years, at the current rate of dispersal, there will be no native Venetians left in the city. It will be a city of tourists and of those who serve them. It is no wonder that Venetians feel themselves to be under threat. Yet through the centuries Venice has passively colluded in its own fate.