This week, we return to Venice. I’m taking part in #City23, which is a writing challenge. Participants try write some material for a city for a role playing game each day. I’ve been using Venice. I’ve reached the stage in the project where I’m going back through a shopping list of material that seems necessary to have a Venice book that hasn’t come up in my general research.
While I was looking at books on Venetian shipbuilding, which will probably be next month’s Venice episode, I found a strange little book by mystery author Donna Leon. Leon used to live in Venice but never allowed her books to be translated into Italian because she didn’t want to have to deal with celebrity fandom. Now that she’s in Switzerland perhaps she’ll change her mind. Anyway, one of her friends built a gondola from scratch and she observed the process. We’re going to go through her notes and look for useful things. In my earlier episode where I laid out the shopping list, I mentioned that I wanted a floor plan for a gondola but in hindsight that’s ridiculous. It’s like asking for a floor plan for a limousine. So let’s go through these notes.
Gondolas have a heap of structural bits that could be enchanted for various effects. The bit interesting me right now is the pontapie, the inclined foot brace that the gondolier pushes against.
The gondola is corked with resin-dipped cotton string wedged into the joints. I think this
can be crossed with the magical hair from the very first Venice episode. It’s then sealed
with resin and then pitched layers, resin on the exterior, pitch on the interior, and
then paint.
A gondola moves at walking speed. Donna Leon’s friend weighs his gondola and it’s 350 kilos.
Gondolas are mentioned in 1094 in a law and this is hundreds of years before my other sources say they exist. The common usage of the word gondola appears in the 16th century and the boat at that time is symmetrical and has two rowers standing and facing forward. It differs from other boats in that a gondola is for people rather than goods. The rowers in gondolas are forward facing because Venice was built on a swamp and it’s a tidal swamp so the obstructions move about. The forward facing is to allow you to see if there’s an obstruction unlike a rowboat for example.
Modern gondolas are from the 19th century. They are slimmer and they are asymmetrical.
I did wonder why gondolas in art are wider in the middle than modern ones.
Making a gondola takes about two years. It’s made of eight different types of wood for large oak, elm, cherry, mahogany, lime, and walnut. It’s around 11 metres long and has a flat bottom to make it faster and more manoeuvrable and a fully laden gondola weighs 700 kilos. There’s a
quote here. “It uses no more energy than if he were walking at a normal pace.”
Tourist gondolas have two oarsmen because of the weight of 12 or more passengers at once.
Modern gondolas are asymmetrical because the thrust comes from only one side. Gondolas
are black but why is legendary. Sumptuary laws probably cut down on the decoration.
Liveried gondolas used to be a thing. There are notes that ambassadors are exempt from
sumptuary laws so some of them had gilded gondolas and she suggests black is a practical colour for covering scrapes and collision damage. She mentions the myth that it is an act of
piety to thank God for deliverance from a particular plague.
The little tent thing is called a felze and it protects passengers from the weather. It’s very common before the modern period and opens at the front and back. It’s made of bright coloured fabric originally and it is originally removable. Later it is black and fixed open on the sides with curtains. Later it has wooden shutters which are the etymological ancestor of Venetian blinds.
Donna Leon on dwells on gondoliers’ attractiveness. There are kind of close personal servants like a particularly stacked valet so they make good sidekicks.
The big metal piece at the front has six teeth representing the six districts and the back it has one representing Giudecca. Many of my other sources said these were purely decorative. Leon notes that the front one counterbalances the gondolier at the back. If so, does the whole boat yaw forward when he steps off? The back piece is simpler and it’s for collisions.
The top bit may look like the Rialto bridge or the ducal Corno. The ferry, the metal bits,
were very ornamental until century laws made them plain which was to get smith’s back to work on military gear.
The forcola is the opening of the oar rests in. It is always made from a single piece of walnut root. It is carved to suit the height and weight of the particular gondolier. It is made by master crafters. It is maintained religiously by gondoliers. They use linseed oil or private magical potions. In the modern day they use Vaseline. It may need a diagram.
The oar is 4.2 meters long and made of beechwood. It is thinner and broader at the far end. It is not a pole. The call for “Look out! I’m coming! is “Oi” which as an Australian pleases me
inordinately.
She notes that in 1514 the Magistrato alle pompe, who enforced sumptory laws, are empowered. In 1562 plain undecorated boats were passed into law by the Senate but the law did not work and so the law is restated in 1584.
And those are Donna Leon’s notes on gondolas. The rest of the book is filled out with translations of barcarolles, which are the songs that gondoliers sing, at least in theory.
There’s a note from another source that the modern striped shirts of gondoliers are from after the Second World War. They wore all black from the 1600s..
Before I leave quick apology for the missing fortnight this month. Little medical issues, everything’s sorted out now. Your saga continues to possibly vary.
Games From Folktales 