hellovenezia

The wonderful frames constructed out of waste fabric on Giudecca, the masks of Il Canovaccio used for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s film, the erotic ceramics in Calle del Pestrin in Castello, the faces of a great contemporary artist at Santo Stefano.

A fine journey through Venice seeking out true local craftsmanship if not outright expressions of art starts off by taking us to the island of Giudecca. This is one of the biggest islands of the southern lagoon archipelago, a part of the district of Dorsoduro. Once called Spinalonga (“Long Spine”) owing to its narrow, lengthened shape, it afterwards took on the name of Zuecca, hence Giudecca, perhaps because an early community of Zudei (Jews) settled there or, more probably, because the zudegai (giudicati, meaning prosecuted) were kept there after appearing in the Doges’ courts.

Made up of eight islets connected by bridges of all sizes, it essentially consists of a continuous waterfront along the Giudecca Canal opposite Zattere, interrupted by smaller canals and lanes overlooked by the façades of churches, palaces and houses.

Until after the last war, Giudecca was also an industrial area of the city of Venice with a number of factories and shipyards, such as the Dreher brewery, the Stucky mill, Junghans, Scalera Film and the Acnil shipyards only to mention a few. Now the post-industrial conversion of many of these buildings has turned the island into an interesting contemporary architecture workshop: many residential and commercial property projects have been put in hand and some buildings have also been regenerated and return profits, like the former Molino Stucky, now a prestigious and imposing hotel complex.

To get to our first goal, the Barbieri bookbindery, we must necessarily use a waterbus to cross the Giudecca Canal and get off at Palanca by ACTV services 2 and/or 41/42 (unless we are already staying on the island of course). Then we go along the Palanca quayside (turn left from the landing stage) as far as Ponte Piccolo and then on again for less than a hundred metres till we get to the shop at the foot of Ponte Longo. As we can see there is a philological simplicity in the choice of place names (“Gangway”, “Small Bridge”, “Long Bridge”) and we also encounter a simple, friendly welcome from the owner of the bookbinding shop, Adriano, who is not only a fervent restorer of old books but uses his hands to construct precious frames, all different from each other, making use of variegated pieces of waste fabric from the nearby Fortuny firm. It is these fine frames that are the main and special object of our visit, in a workshop much loved by Joan Baez, the American singer and composer.

From Giudecca we get another waterbus to take us to our second appointment: disembark at San Zaccaria, then walk across St. Mark’s Square, up Mercerie, across Campo San Zulian and Campo della Guerra and then up Calle delle Bande, about a quarter of an hour. This is another shop where they also work with paper, even if it is papier-mâché. It’s one of the best Venetian mask shops, and one of the most original. Both owing to its prime location and the inventiveness of its products, Il Canovaccio, for that is its name, is always crowded, and by very special clients into the bargain. Here two members of the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards and Ron Wood, enchanted by the milieu, a highly coloured magic cave, once ecstatically improvised a piano concert.

The owners’ recipe is respect for tradition and profound knowledge of papier-mâché work; they also arrange workshops for customers and try out traditional techniques and materials while being open to research and experimentation. The most traditional Venetian masks come out of this shop, whose name is directly inspired by the Commedia dell’Arte: bauta and morettina masks, but also articles with luxuriant plumage (it was the first workshop in the city to offer them); there is a super-abundant range of animal characters too, more than a hundred ranging from the ant, the last on the scene, to the unicorn, the fiery dragon and even a triceratops. Each one rigorously different from the others, and each patiently hand-painted.

This shop cum workshop - ask Ivana and Marco for information - produced the masks used by Tom Cruise and some of the other characters in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and again in this shop is to be found the original of the mask known as the “most beautiful face in Venice”, which is the mask worn, as a neutral face covering, by all the richest and most photographed costumed personages of the Venetian Carnival.

From Il Canovaccio we return to the nearby San Zaccaria waterbus stop and after just one waterbus No.1 stage we get off at Arsenale. From there we walk to Campo San Martino, cross the middle bridge (Ponte Storto) and come into the very narrow calle of the same name. At number 3786 on the right we see the window of one of the last active potters left in Venice, the maker of some of the rarest and most special types of ceramics. It is the workshop and studio of Alessandro Merlin and his erotic and geometric products.

Sexy erotic scenes in the wake of the ancient Greek vase tradition, but exquisitely delicate in structure, inventiveness, lightness of touch and emotive force, and highly sophisticated geometric figures enclosing fishes, shellfish and other typical Lagoon animals.

This is another shop that is to be considered a magic cave, especially for those lucky enough to be able to go into the sitting room at the back and watch Merlin while he works.

In Calle del Pestrin nearby we have a renowned restaurant, La Corte Sconta, which recalls the Venetian scenes created by Hugo Pratt for the enigmatic hero of his stories, Corto Maltese.

Calle del Pestrin is a few hundred metres from St. Mark’s Square and so we are ready for another short trip to our fourth and last appointment. The route is the square, Via XXII Marzo, Campo San Maurizio, Campo Santo Stefano and Calle delle Botteghe, and we reach San Marco 3338, where a great 16th century Venetian artist lived, Paolo Caliari known as Veronese.

In one of the ground floor premises that the painter used as his workshop is Luigi Benzoni’s studio and shop. Benzoni was born in the Province of Bergamo in 1956 and came to Venice in 1976 to study at the Venice University Institute of Architecture. He began to paint, his first themes being a Venice transfigured by eerie sunsets or the purest kind of informal work with violent brush strokes that seem to disintegrate the canvas in the manner of the Emilio Vedova school. Afterwards he began a profound study of the human face, Ecce Homo, which he repeats in his works with obsessive determination, both in oils and sculpted in glass and bronze.

Benzoni’s glass vases are also splendid, as are his pure gold leaf designs fashioned in molten glass: some of the well-known Murano glass factories take bookings to see him at work on these. His productions are to be found in public and private collections, and they are a magnificent and sparkling way to end our day in Venice.

Alessandro Rizzardini (riproduzione riservata ©)