How to Shop in Venice - Venice: A Travel Guide to Murano Glass, Carnival Masks, Gondolas, Lace, Paper and More - page 3

intertwined vegetal motifs; mosaic work on vases, lamps, buildings, and many other sur-
faces; whimsical masks and elaborate costumes. Perhaps in no other city in the world are its
foremost artistic traditions—gondolas, Murano glass, and carnival masks—virtually syn-
onymous with the city itself.
The opulence of Venetian style is deeply rooted in time. In the history of art, Venice
plays a unique and important role. In addition to its novel political organization—hailed
as a model of government during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—the Venetian
Republic's influence stretched far beyond the waterlogged city. Its geographical location,
poised on the edge of the Eastern world, made it an important point of departure for western
pilgrims and crusaders. In the Middle Ages the powerful Republic of Venice colonized
the eastern Mediterranean. Venetian merchants and mercenaries alternately pummeled and
traded with some of the most illustrious cities of the East, especially Constantinople. This
strategic location also made Venice a point of entry for luxury goods and plundered wares
from the Byzantine and Arab worlds. As Venetian Crusaders looted Eastern cities and
brought home their booty, local artists were influenced by the modes of the Byzantine and
Islamic worlds. The city's artistic traditions and forms bear witness to this historical posi-
tion as a crossroads of East and West. In turn, many of the goods produced in the Venetian
Republic were exported or copied elsewhere in Europe.
FINDING YOUR WAY
Venice boasts one of the most confusing address systems in all of Italy, and
that's saying a lot in a country where each city has its own unique way of
denoting addresses. Venice is divided into several districts or sestieri : Can-
naregio, Castello, Dorsoduro, San Marco, San Polo, and Santa Croce. With-
in each district addresses are numbered consecutively, so a typical address
might read “Dorsoduro 3652,” meaning that it is building number 3652 in the
district of Dorsoduro. Sometimes streets have a name, and sometimes they
don't. Sometimes they have more than one. Sometimes they are written in
Venetian dialect, sometimes in Italian. Sometimes even and odd numbers are
located on the same side of the street, and sometimes they are on opposite
sides. By all means buy a map, but prepare to get lost anyway, and enjoy!
In addition to this nod toward Eastern modes, Venetian art is also renowned for its lu-