Venice: Ancient history and enchanting beauty

 

 

Piazza San Marco at night

 

Venice - Mohamedd Hashem Abdelsalam

 

 

British poet Lord Byron defined it as a “fairy-tale city,” describing it as “one of the most magical and touching places.” The vast majority of Arabs call this Italian city, with its rich history and charming beauty, “Venice,” believing that the word is an Arabization carried out by the ancients. But the word “Venetian” is not Arabic, and is a complete misnomer. Venice was once a kingdom and duchy, then became an independent republic for more than a thousand years. In its history, the city has had many names and descriptions: Quiet Republic, Queen of the Adriatic, Beautiful Duchy, (Buono Duchy) in Italian. Gradually, to facilitate its pronunciation in Arabic, it began to be pronounced “bunoduqi,” then “gun.” So, the name is just a completely wrong distortion of the Italian pronunciation of one of the old descriptions of the city, so many thought it was the Arabization of its name.

Venice It is not just the huge, famous tourist island that appears in pictures and movies. It is divided into two parts: a large main island connected to the mainland (Mestre), 9 km away from floating Venice, and the distance between them is covered by train or bus. Another is represented by the 118 islands. The main water canals (approximately 150), and bridges that number in the hundreds. Many believe that the water canals throughout Venice are the water of the Adriatic Sea, but they are the water of the “lagoon,” that is, a shallow salt lake adjacent to the sea water and connected to it in different places. Its depth does not exceed two meters, and it is dominated by a putrid odor that attracts many insects, especially mosquitoes in the area. Summer nights, which are not suitable for swimming at all. Hence, the main connection with the Adriatic passes through the islands of “Lido” and “Santa Maria del Mare”, which, despite their elongation and thinness, act as an impenetrable barrier that protects most of the islands inside the “lagoon”. They are the city's two main beaches suitable for swimming. They are the only ones that have a modern, multi-store building, paved streets, and traffic lights. Private cars and public transportation are allowed to pass through them. But, in general, they are little known to tourists who think that Venice is only Piazza San Marco and the alleys and alleys surrounding it, that is, the old town. Perhaps a few have heard of and visited the islands of Murano and Burano. In the first place, there is a very famous international glass industry. In the second, very luxurious “lace” is made.

 

 

Famous Venetian mask

 

San Marco is the most famous square in Venice. It is distinguished by its bell tower from which many islands can be seen, and some aspects of its majestic cathedral of the same name, which is a unique masterpiece of its kind in Europe. A few meters away is one of the most famous Gothic palaces in the city: the “Ducal Palace”, built in 1340, where the seat of government and the residence of kings and dukes have been located throughout the ages. And also, where the prison in which Giacomo Casanova was located is located. There is also the “Bridge of Sighs,” which connects the palace to the old court, through which prisoners were transported from the first to the second. Therefore, Lord Byron gave it this name, as an expression of the pain of the prisoners, the tortured, and the persecuted. In 1923, the palace was transformed into one of the city's 11 most famous museums.

 

 

 

City of Venice

 

 

 

“Café Florian” (1720) in Piazza San Marco is considered the oldest and oldest café in the world, and it has not closed its doors yet. It was frequented by great writers, such as Carlo Goldoni, Wolfgang von Goethe, Giacomo Casanova, Lord Byron, Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, and other celebrities of art, cinema and finance. As for Thomas Mann, he preferred to stay away from tourist Venice and its main square and stay on the island of “Lido”, which he had frequented since 1911 at its historic hotel known as the “Hotel des Panes”, which was founded in 1900. One of the most famous cinematic films adapted from a literary text by Thomas Mann was filmed there. , “Death in Venice” (1971) by Visconti.

Lido Island was also the scene of Lord Byron's love affairs with his Italian lover, the wife of one of the city's nobles. On its beach, he was always swimming. But he began writing his play “Marino Valerio: Duke of Venice” and the first sections of “Don Juan” on the island of “San Lazaro.” Byron came to Italy to escape debts and scandals, and lived many years in Venice, most of which he spent on the island of San Lazzaro, where he lived with Armenian monks, learned the Armenian language, and participated in preparing the English-Armenian dictionary. “San Lazzaro” is one of Venice’s best-kept secrets. It was formerly a leper colony. In 1717, the Duke of Venice granted it to an Armenian Catholic monk to establish his religious community. The Armenian monks built their church and hermitages, and they still live in it today. Its museum is the largest treasure trove outside Armenia of Armenian and Hebrew manuscripts, books, and printing tools.

 

 

 

Murano Island - Venice

 

 

It is really difficult to enumerate the islands of Venice, as it has been a truly self-sufficient republic for dozens of centuries. Some of its islands are very small, while others are really large. Some of them are inhabited by thousands, while others are inhabited by only dozens, or no one at all. Some of them are just old monasteries, abandoned or used, and some are small hotels. A few other islands are a huge cemetery that is impressive from the outside. In short, Venice is not only the Grand Canal, Piazza San Marco, and its surroundings and gondolas. Nor are the ancient buildings, luxurious palaces, distinguished museums, and unique churches and cathedrals in the old town. It is indeed a country whose visitor needs many months to discover and know its heritage, to notice everything that is pure “Venetian” in it, and to realize that it has its own dialect, and that the vocabulary of this Venetian dialect is difficult, even for the Italians themselves.