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The Grand Canal (Italian: Canal Grande, Venetian: Canałasso) is the most important canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city. Public transport is provided by water buses and private water taxis, but many tourists visit it by gondola.

At one end the canal leads into the lagoon near Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into Saint Mark Basin: in between it makes a large S-shape through the central districts ("sestieri") of Venice. It is 3800 m long, 30-70 m wide, with an average depth of five meters.

Description


The Grand Canal banks are lined with more than 170 beautiful buildings, most of which date to 13th/18th century and demonstrate the welfare and art created by the Republic of Venice. The noble venetian families faced huge expenses to show off their richness in suitable palazzos: this contest reveals the citizens’ pride and the deep bond with the lagoon.

Amongst the many are the Palazzi Barbaro, Ca' Rezzonico, Ca' d'Oro, Palazzo Dario, Ca' Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The churches along the canal include the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. Centuries-old tradition such as the Historical Regatta are perpetuated every year along the Canal.

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 two more bridges, the Ponte dei Scalzi and the Ponte dell'Accademia. A fourth bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava is now under construction, connecting the train station to the vehicle-open area of Piazzale Roma. 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 traghetto.

"«In this way, the mansions arranged along either bank of the canal made one think of objects of nature, but of a nature which seemed to have created its works with a human imagination.»"

- Marcel Proust, Albertine disparue

Most of the palaces emerge from water without pavement: only sailing one can contemplate continuously this peaceful sequence of façades illuminated by water reflections, isolated from people streams and "fenced" with piles. The Grand Canal is thus an enchanted place, contributing to the magic of one of the most beloved cities in the world.



The first settlements
The Grand Canal probably follows the course of an ancient river (maybe a Brenta's branch) flowing into the lagoon. Adriatic Veneti groups already lived beside the formerly called "Rio Businiacus" before the Roman age. They lived in stilt houses and on fishing and commerce (mainly salt). Under the rule of the Roman empire and later of the Byzantine empire the lagoon became populated and important, and in the early 800s the doge moved his seat from Malamocco to the safer "Rivoaltus".

The increasing trades followed the doge and found in the deep Grand Canal a safe and ship accessible canal-port. As the whole city, this area became compact as we can see today after drainage: at that time the Canal was wider and flowed between small, tide subjected islands connected by wooden bridges.

The "fondaco" houses
Along the Canal increased the number of "fondaco" houses, buldings combining the warehouse and the merchant's residence.

A portico (the curia) covers the bank and facilitate the ships' unloading. From the portico a corridor flanked by storerooms reaches a posterior courtyard. Similarly, at the first floor a loggia as large as the portico illuminates the hall in which open the merchant's rooms. The façade is so divided in an airy central part and two more solid sides. A low mezzanine with offices divides the two floors.

The fondaco house had often two lateral defensive towers (torreselle), as in the Fondaco dei Turchi (13th century, almost rebuilt in the 19th). As the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (also facing Grand Canal) it witnesses the high number of foreign merchants: there the Republic supplied them with storerooms and lodging and simultaneously controlled their trades.

More public buildings were built along the Canal at Rialto: palaces for commercial and financial Benches (Palazzo dei Camerlenghi and Palazzo dei Dieci Savi, rebuilt after 1514 fire), a mint. In 1181 Nicolò Barattieri carried out a pontoon bridge connecting Rialto to Mercerie area, later replaced by a wooden bridge with shops on. Warehouses for flour and salt were more peripheral.

The Venetian-Byzantine style
From the Byzantine empire arrived goods together with sculptures, friezes, columns and capitals to decorate the fondaco houses of patrician families. The Byzantine art merged with previous elements resulting in a Venetian-Byzantine style; in architecture it was characterized by large loggias with round or elongated arches and by polychrome marbles abundance.

Along the Grand Canal this elements are well preserved in Ca' Farsetti, Ca' Loredan (both municipal seats) and Ca' da Mosto, all dating back to 12th-13th century. During this period Rialto had an intense building development, determining the conformation of the Canal and surrounding areas. As a matter of fact, in Venice building materials are precious and foundations are usually kept: in the subsequent restorations, existing elements will be used again, mixing the Venetian-Byzantine to the new styles (Ca' Sagredo, Palazzo Bembo). Polychromy, three-partitioned façades, loggias, diffuse openings and rooms disposition will form a particular architectural taste that will continue in the future.

The fourth crusade, with the enormous loot of Costantinople sack (1204), and other historical situations will induce Venice to look at eastern art until the late 14th century.

The Venetian Gothic
Gothic architecture will therefore find favour quite late, but as a splendid flamboyant Gothic ("gotico fiorito") which will grace Venice, beginning from the southern façade of the Doge's Palace. The verticality and the illumination characterizing the Gothic style found in the porticos and loggias of fondaco houses their natural context: columns get thinner, elongated arches are replaced by pointed or ogee or lobed ones. Porticos rise gently intertwining and drawing open marbles in quatrefoils or similar figures. Façades were plastered in brilliant colors.

The open marble fascias, often referred as "laces", quickly diffused along the Grand Canal. Among the 15th century palaces still showing the original appearance are Ca' d'Oro, Palazzo Bernardo, Ca' Foscari (now housing the University of Venice), Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Palazzi Barbaro, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti.

Renaissance
By the end of the 15th century Renaissance architecture motifs appears, for example in Palazzo Dario and Palazzo Corner Spinelli; the latter was designed by Mauro Codussi, pioneer of this style in Venice. Ca' Vendramin Calergi, another project of him now hosting the Casino, reveals a completed transition: the numerous and large windows with open marbles are round arched and have columns in the three classical orders.

Classical architecture themes are more evident in Jacopo Sansovino's projects, who arrived from Rome in 1527. Along the Canal he designed Palazzo Corner and Palazzo Dolfin Manin, characterized for grandiosity, for the horizontal layout of the white façades and for the development around a central courtyard. Other Renaissance buildings are Palazzo Papadopoli and Palazzo Grimani. Several palaces of this period had façades with frescoes by painters such as Il Pordenone, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, all of them unfortunately lost.

The Venetian Baroque
In 1582 Alessandro Vittoria began the construction of Palazzo Balbi (now housing the Government of Veneto), in which Baroque elements can be recognized: fashioned cornices, broken pediments, ornamental motifs.

The protagonist of Baroque architecture in Venice was Baldassarre Longhena. In 1631 he began to build the magnificent Santa Maria della Salute basilica, one of the most beutiful churches in Venice and a symbol of Grand Canal. The classical layout of the façade is stirred by decorations and by many statues, the latter crowning also the refined volutes surrounding the major dome.

Longhena later designed two majestic palaces like Ca' Pesaro and Ca' Rezzonico (with many carvings and chiaroscuro effects) and Santa Maria di Nazareth church (Chiesa degli Scalzi). For various reasons the great architect did not see any of these buildings finished, and they were all modified after his death but the Salute.

Longhena's themes recur in the two older façades of Palazzo Labia, containing a famous fresco cycle by Giambattista Tiepolo. In the Longhenian school grew Domenico Rossi (San Stae's façade, Ca' Corner della Regina) and Giorgio Massari, who later completed Ca' Rezzonico.

The 16th and 17th centuries mark the beginning of the Republic's decline, but nevertheless they saw the highest building activity on the Grand Canal. This can be partially explained by the increasing number of families (like the Labia) becoming patrician by the payment of an enormous sum to the Republic, in financial difficulties. Once gained this status, these families provided themselves of adequate residences on the Canal, often inducing other families to renew theirs.

Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architectures along the Canal date to 18th century: during the first half was built San Simeone Piccolo, with an impressive corinthian portico, central plan and a high copper-covered dome ending in a cupola shaped as a temple. Date to the second half Massari's Palazzo Grassi.

The last two centuries
After the Republic fall in 1797 the housing in Venice got frozen, as symbolized in the unfinished San Marcuola and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (Peggy Guggenheim Collection seat). Patrician families lost their desire of self-exaltation and many of them died out. Several historical palaces were pulled down, but most of them survived and good restorations have saved their 18th century appearance. The most important are owned public and host institutions and museums.

Religious buildings underwent the consequences of religious orders suppression decreed by Napoleon in the Kingdom of Italyperiod. Many churches and monasteries were deprived of furnishings and works of art, changed their function (like Santa Maria della Carità complex, now housing the Gallerie dell'Accademia) or were demolished. The Santa Croce complex naming a sestiere was situated in Papadopoli Gardens area; Santa Lucia complex (partially designed by Palladio) was razed to the ground to build Santa Lucia Station.

The Kingdom of Italy accession restored serenity in the city and stimulated a housing resumption on Grand Canal respecting its beauty, often reproduced in Gothic Revival architectures like the Pescaria at Rialto.



Historical Regatta
On the first sunday of september takes place the Historical Regatta ("Regata Storica"), a competition between Venetian boats watched by thousands of people from the banks or from floating stands. Competitions are preceded by a historical procession ("Corteo Storico") remembering the entrance of the Queen of Cyprus Catherine Cornaro after abdication in 1489: gondoliers in costumes sail in typical 1500s boats following the Bucentaur, doge's state galley.

The Feast-day of the Madonna della Salute
On November, 21st Venetians thank Madonna for saving from a plague epidemic in 1630-31 with a pilgrimage to Santa Maria della Salute. Pilgrims cross Grand Canal on a temporary bridge built on boats from Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, and enjoy stalls and traditional dishes.