A thousand years ago, the Doge Pietro Orseolo II took his triumphant naval fleet to the sea entrance at the Lido and ceremoniously threw a diamond ring into the water, thus marrying his city to the Adriatic and securing Venice’s dominion over its waters and trade routes. […]

When Goethe visited Venice for just over two weeks in 1786, he climbed the campanile twice, at high tide and then at low tide. It was from this tower that, at the age of 37 and already famous, he saw the sea for the first time in his life. […]

Now we know for sure that the ocean is rising faster than Venice will subside.

{ Aeon | Continue reading }

photo { Roman Noven and Tania Shcheglova }

Medieval Venice was a trading empire, one of the busiest ports of the late medieval world. As a hub of commerce waves of plague visited and revisited Venice in 1348, 1462, 1485, 1506, 1575-1577, and 1630-1632 with the last two producing mortality rates around 30% of the population.

As we all know, Venice has a land problem, or rather a lack of land problem. Thriving economies draw large populations and burial space becomes difficult to come by. Adding the plague on top and we have the perfect conditions for the discovery of mass plague burials.

{ Detecting pathogens in medieval Venice | Contagions | Continue reading }

photo { Grave of Peggy Guggenheim and her dogs in Venice | i took the photo | Starting in late December 1937, Peggy Guggenheim and Samuel Beckett had a brief affair. | And: Of everything she did in her life, she said discovering Pollock was “by far the most honourable achievement.” But Pollock was rarely invited to her outrageous bashes “as he drank so much and did unpleasant things on such occasions.” He once urinated into a fireplace. }