Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Literature
In a surprising 15th-century plot twist, shipping magnate Venice became a publishing em-
pire. Johannes Gutenberg cranked out his first Bible with a movable-type press in 1455,
and Venice became an early adopter of this cutting-edge technology, turning out the earliest
printed Qur'an. Venetian printing presses were in operation by the 1470s, with lawyers set-
tling copyright claims soon thereafter. Venetian publishers printed not just religious texts
but histories, poetry, textbooks, plays, musical scores and manifestos.
Early Renaissance author Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) was a librarian, historian, diplomat
and poet who defined the concept of platonic love and solidified Italian grammar in his
Rime
(Rhymes). Bembo collaborated with Aldo Manuzio on an invention that revolution-
ised reading and democratised learning: the Aldine Press, which introduced italics and pa-
perbacks, including Dante's
La Divina Commedia
(The Divine Comedy). By 1500, nearly
one in six books published in Europe was printed in Venice.
In trying to describe the Inferno to contemporary readers circa 1307, Dante compared it to Venice's
Arsenale, with its stinking vats of tar, sparks lying from hammers and infernal clamour of 16,000 labour-
ers working nonstop on its legendary ship-assembly lines.
Poetry
Duels, politics and romance seemed impossible in Venice without poetry. Shakespeare has
competition for technical prowess from Veneto's Petrarch (aka Francesco Petrarca;
1304-74), who added wow to Italian woo with his eponymous sonnets. Writing in Italian
and Latin, Petrarch applied a strict structure of rhythm (14 lines, with two quatrains to de-
scribe a desire and a sestet to attain it) and rhyme (no more than five rhymes per sonnet) to
romance the idealised Laura. He might have tried chocolates instead: Laura never returned
the sentiment.
Posthumously, Petrarch became idolised by Rilke, Byron, Mozart and Venice's
cortigi-
ane oneste
(well-educated 'honest courtesans'). Tullia d'Aragona (1510-56) wrote sharp-
witted Petrarchan sonnets that wooed men senseless: noblemen divulged state secrets,
kings risked their thrones to beg her hand in marriage, and much ink was spilled in pan-
egyric praise of her hooked nose.
Written with wit and recited with passion, poetry might get you a free date with a high-
end courtesan, killed or elected in Venice. Leonardo Giustinian (1388-1446) was a member
of the Consiglio dei Dieci (Council of Ten) who spent time off from spying on his neigh-
