Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Age of Decadence
While Italy's city-states continued to plot against one another, they were increasingly ec-
lipsed by marriages cementing alliances among France, Henry VIII's England and the
Habsburg Empire. As it lost ground to these European nation-states and the seas to pirates
and Ottomans, Venice took a different tack, and began conquering Europe by charm.
Sensations & Scandals
Venice's star attractions were its parties, music, women and art. Nunneries in Venice held
soirées to rival those in its
ridotti
(casinos), and Carnevale lasted up to three months. Clau-
dio Monteverdi was hired as choir director of San Marco in 1613, introducing multi-part
harmonies and historical operas with crowd-pleasing tragicomic scenes. Monteverdi's mod-
ern opera caught on: by the end of the 17th century, Venice's season included as many as
30 operas, including 10 brand-new operas composed for Venetian venues.
New orchestras required musicians, but Venice came up with a ready workforce: orphan
girls. Circumstances had conspired to produce an unprecedented number of Venetian
orphans: on the one hand were plague and snake-oil cures, and on the other were scandal-
ous masquerade parties and flourishing prostitution. Funds poured in from anonymous
donors to support
ospedaletti
(orphanages), and the great baroque composers Antonio
Vivaldi and Domenico Cimarosa were hired to lead orphan orchestras. The Venetian state
took on the care and musical training of the city's orphan girls, who earned their keep by
performing at public functions and
ospedaletti
fundraising galas. Visiting diplomats treated
to orphan concerts were well advised to tip the orphan performers: you never knew whose
illegitimate daughter you might be insulting otherwise.
Socialites began gifting snuffboxes and portraits painted by Venetian artists as fashion-
able tokens of their esteem, and salon habitués across Europe became accustomed to myth-
ological and biblical themes painted in luminous Venetian colours, with the unmistakable
city on the water as a backdrop. On baroque church ceilings across Venice, frescoed angels
play heavenly music on lutes and trumpets - instruments officially banned from churches
by Rome. Venetian art became incredibly daring, with Titian and Veronese bringing volup-
tuous red colours and sly social commentary to familiar religious subjects.
