Venice Art Tours

A few unusual things which are less likely to be in your guidebook are listed below .. 

Entrance fees on the tours:  My history/art walking tour goes to The Frari Church (€3.00 per person), Zanipolo Church (€2.50 per person), Miracoli Church (€3.00 per person), Traghetto (€ .50) per person. The art tour goes to the  Scuola S Rocco (€7.00 per person)  and Accademia (€6.50 per person).  

Old World Books. The Ghetto, on the bridge to the left of Ghetto Novo. This is an excellent second-hand bookshop which specialises in books about Venice and Italy. Books are in English and Italian, as well as some 16th century books published in Latin and Italian. Categories include the Jews in Venice, art, fiction, history, politics, art, philosophy, religion, and much more. Say hello to John Francis Phillimore, the proprietor. Phone: 041 275 9456. email: venezialibri@yahoo.it   He may offer you a glass of prosecco. Closed for lunch and on Saturdays and Sundays.

Also in the Ghetto lives a painter named Tony Green who paints Venice and Ghetto scenes. His work is excellent and you can visit his studio. Call him at 347 187 4825.  Here's his painting of the Spanish Synagogue:

The Wagner Museum at Palazzo Vendramin. (now Venice's Casino) on the Grand Canal near S. Marcuola vaporetto stop. Here Wagner worked and died. It is open only on Saturday mornings at 10:30. You must book the day before (Friday) by phoning before 12 noon. Phone the Wagner Society at 041 276 0407. There is no fee, but a donation is suggested.

The Secret Itinerary of the Doge's Palace. This is a small tour which takes you to places in the Palace otherwise not accessible (Casanova's cells, the torture chamber, the interrogation rooms, and into the rafters over the Grand Consiglio). Cost is about €15 (including entrance to the Palace). You must book 4 days or so in advance in the tourist season., but you pay only when you arrive for the tour. Tours are in English and there are usually 3 per morning. Phone number to book is +39 041 520 9070, or you can book online (if the website booking module is working which is unlikely) http://www.weekendavenezia.com/bigphp/mus.php?mus=ducaleveis&skin=ve

The Vivaldi Museum. In the rear of the Pieta Church, around the side. This small new museum has a few Vivaldi ephemera but also an interesting collection of items relating to the Ospedale della  Pieta, an "orphanage" where Vivaldi was maestro dei concerti and where he worked for many years. It is open Mondays and Wednesdays, 11AM  to 4 PM, €3 fee.

The Correr Museum in Piazza S Marco. Many people go there but they fail to go to the top floor which has a lovely collection of paintings from various centuries, especially the 15th and 16th.  Use same ticket from Doge's Palace.

Ezra Pound. This influential American poet died in Venice in 1972. You can see some of the houses he occupied. His first digs in 1907 were on the Rio S. Trovaso, opposite the gondola repair yard. It's the house next to the walled garden and above the nautical supply shop. His room was at the top right. He mentions the view from his room in Canto LXXVI "Well, my window...looked out on the Squero where Ogni Santi...meets San Trovaso...things have ends and beginnings" From that room he wrote his first book of poems "A Lume Spento". He also lived on the corner of Rio S. Vio above what is now a print shop, diagonally across from the Anglican Church. He considered throwing those early poems into the Grand Canal while sitting in the Campo S. Vio at the water's edge. He returned to Venice in 1958 and lived finally on Calle Querini, one street off the Guidecca Canal on the Rio della Fornace. There is a plaque identifying the house. He shared this house with Olga Rudge who was its owner. Pound is buried in S Michele Cemetery in the protestant section next to Olga Rudge, both beneath simple marble tombstones engraved by Venetian sculptor Joan Fitzgerald, a close friend of theirs. "O God, what great kindness have we done in times past and forgotten it, That thou givest this wonder unto us, O God of waters?"  (Night Litany)

Cloister Sant'Apollonia. Lovely 14th c. Romanesque cloister hidden behind the Doge's Palace across the bridge from the awful area where gondoliers and glass blowers hawk themselves. This cloister is a delightful get-away spot, so near the heaving crowds and the noise of S Marco and yet empty and quiet.  A good place to rest, reflect, and regroup.

© Howard Fitzpatrick