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Canal Grande from Rialto Bridge, Venice, Italy

The Grand Canal (Italian: Canal Grande, Venetian: Canałasso) is a canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city. Public transport is provided by water buses (Italian: vaporetti) and private water taxis, and many tourists explore the canal by gondola. At one end, the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into Saint Mark Basin; in between, it makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3,800 m long, 30–90 m wide, with an average depth of five meters (16.5 ft).

 

Because most of the city's traffic goes along the Canal rather than across it, only one bridge crossed the canal until the 19th century, the Rialto Bridge. There are currently three more bridges, the Ponte degli Scalzi, the Ponte dell'Accademia, and the recent, controversial Ponte della Costituzione, designed by Santiago Calatrava, connecting the train station to Piazzale Roma, one of the few places in Venice where buses and cars can enter. As was usual in the past, people can still take a ferry ride across the canal at several points by standing up on the deck of a simple gondola called a traghetto, although this service is less common than even a decade ago. Most of the palaces emerge from water without pavement. Consequently, one can only tour past the fronts of the buildings on the grand canal by boat.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand Canal, Venice

 

The Ca' da Mosto is a thirteenth-century palace in Venice, northern Italy, the oldest building on the Grand Canal. It is in the Veneto-Byzantine style, with high narrow arches and distinctive capitals. The features of the palace show its beginnings as a casa-fondaco, the home and workplace of its original merchant owner. A second floor was added at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a third in the nineteenth. The palace takes its name from the Venetian explorer Alvise da Ca' da Mosto, who was born in the palace in 1432. It stayed in the da Mosto family until 1603, when Chiara da Mosto left her entire estate to Leonardo Donà dalle Rose, a nephew of her second husband, rather than her da Mosto relatives, with whom she had fallen out. Between the 16th and the 18th centuries the Ca' da Mosto housed the well-known Albergo Leon Bianco (the White Lion Hotel). In 1769 and 1775 the Holy Roman Emperor and son of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, lived here during his stay in Venice.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca' da Mosto

 

The Chiesa dei Santi Apostoli di Cristo (English: Church of the Holy Apostles of Christ), commonly called San Apostoli, is a 7th-century Roman Catholic church located in the Cannaregio sestiere of the Italian city of Venice. It is one of the oldest churches in the city and has undergone numerous changes since its foundation. The present building is the result of a major reconstruction project which was undertaken in 1575. The church is notable particularly for the Cornaro Chapel, an important example of Early Renaissance architecture, added by Mauro Codussi during the 1490s. The chapel is the burial place of several members of the powerful Cornaro family, including Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus. The church houses several works of art including pieces by Giambattista Tiepolo and Paolo Veronese.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santi Apostoli, Venice

 

Palazzo dei Camerlenghi is a Renaissance palace in Venice, northern Italy, located in the sestiere (quarter) of San Polo. It faces the Canal Grande, near the Rialto Bridge. The palace was built from 1525 to 1528 under design by Guglielmo dei Grigi, who was inspired by the style of Mauro Codussi and Pietro Lombardo. It was the seat of several financial magistrates, including the Camerlenghi whom it takes its name from, the Consuls of the Traders and the Supra-Consuls of the Traders. Due to this function, the lower floor was used as a jail for the insolvents: the location nearby the crowded Rialto Bridge served as an admonition for the people passing there. The palace currently houses the regional seat of the Italian Comptroller and Auditor General. The palace has a pentagonal plan which follows the shore of the Canal Grande, with three floors. It has tall windows with centrings, divided by false columns and decorated with friezes. There were once polyhcrome marble and porphyry slabs, now lost. Due to the Venetian tradition that, when leaving the position, a magistrate would leave a religious-themed painting and a portrait in his former seat, the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi housed numerous artworks. These were dispersed during the French occupation; some returned to Venice, but are now in other locations.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo dei Camerlenghi

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Uploaded on September 3, 2013
Taken on January 7, 2008