88 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC' AUGUST ~009

For every resident Venetian, hundreds of visitors pour into the city each year to savor its gilded charms.Most will take in this view across San Marco Basin. Many could find themselves in acqua alta-high water.

J

go NATIONAl,. GEOGRAPHIC' AUGUST 2009

The tide of tourism crests at carnival, when crowds cluster around and near the p;azzetta san Marco. Thereare many other lovely places to linger. Mayor Massimo cacciari advises, "Throw the map away. Get 10st.R

•

91 NATIONAL GEOGIIAPIIiC • AUGUST 1009

Young people gather at a neighborhood bistro. Growing tourism forces many residents to leave. But Venetian

Emanuele Dal Carlo Insists. "There's still time to reclaim the city. Ours is the last generation that can."

By Cathy Newman • Photographs by Jodi Cobb

owhere in Italy, where calamity comes embellished with rococo

gestures and embroidered in exclamation points. is there a crisis

more beautifully framed than Venice. Neither land nor water, but

shimmering somewhere in between. the city lifts like a mirage from a lagoon at

the head of the Adriatic. For centuries it has threatened to vanish beneath the

waves of the acqua alta, relentlessly regular flooding caused by the complicity

of rising tides and sinking foundations. but that is the least of its problems.

Just ask Mayor Massimo Cacciari, broody,mercurial professor of philosophy, nuent inGerman, Latin, Ancient Greek; translator ofSophocles' Antigone; a man who raises the levelof political intellect to just short of the strato­sphere. Ask about the acqua alta and Venicesinking, and he says, ~So go get boots," Let themwear boots.

Boots are fine for water, but useless againstthe flood that causes more hand-wringingthan any lagoon spillover: the flood of tourism.lumber of Venetian residents in 2007: 60,000.

Number of visitors in 2007: 21 million.In May 2008, for example, on a holiday week­

end, 80,000 tourists descended on the city likelocusts on the fields of Egypt. Public lots inMestre, a mainland part of the municipalitywhere people park and take the bus or train tothe historic center, filled and were closed. Thosewho managed to get to Venice surged throughthe streets like schools of bluefish, snappingup pizza and gelato, leaving paper and plasticbottles in their wake.

La Serenissima ("the most serene one"), asVenice is known. is anything bul. The worldsteps into the exquisitely carved font of thecity, guidebook in hand, fantasies packed alongwith toothbrush and sturdy shoes. Splash! Outspill the Venetians. Tourism isn't the only rea­son for the accelerating exodus, but one ques­tion hovers like a haze: Who will be the lastVenetian left?

94 NATIONAL GIIOGRAPHIC, AUGUST ~009

"Venice is such a lovely city, said the directorof a cultural foundation. From his window youcould look across the San Marco Basin-withits unending flotilla of speedboats, gondolas,and water-buses called vaporetti-and beyondto the Piazza San Marco, epicenter of Venetiantourism. "Really. it is a huge theater. If you havethe money, you can rent an apartment in a 171h­century palazzo with servants and pretend youare an aristocrat."

Please take your seats. In this play, Venice as­sumes a dual role. There is Venice the city wherepeople live and Venice the city tourists visit.Lighting, sets, and costumes are so beautiful theheart aches, but the plot is full of confusion, theending uncertain. One thing is certain: Every­one is madly in love with the title character.

"BEAUTY IS DIFFICULT:' Mayor Cacciari said,sounding as if he were addressing a graduateseminar in aesthetics rather than answering aquestion about municipal policy. He quotedEzra Pound (the American poet, buried inVenice) quoting Aubrey Beardsley's line toWilliam Butler Yeats. a kind of literary game oftelephone-but then indirection is as Venetianas the curves of the Grand Canal.

Cacciari. whose reputation for arrogancerivals his reputation for eloquence, seemed tobe in a mood as black as his hair and luxuriantbeard. (Not a streak of gray on his 63-year-oldhead. ~Does he dye his hair?" I asked a press

officer. "No. He is very proud of that," she an­swered.) The day before, a torrential downpourhad flooded Mestre. Rain caused the flood, notacqua alta, Cacciari said, sitting in his office."MOSE (the flood barriers under construction;see page 1081 wouldn't have helped. High tideis not a problem for me. It's a problem for youforeigners." End of discussion on flooding.

No, he pressed, the problems lie elsewhere.The cost of maintaining Venice: "There is notenough money from the state to cover it all­the cleaning ofcanals, restoration of buildings,raising of foundations. Very expensive:' The costof living: "It's three times as costly to live here asin Mogliano, 20 kilometers away. It's affordableonly for the rich or elderly who already ownhouses because they have been passed down.The young? They can't afford it."

Finally, there is tourism. Of that, Cacciari thephilosopher said this: "Venice is not a sentimentalplace of honeymoon. It's a strong, contradictory,overpowering place. It is not a city for tourists.It cannot be reduced to a postcard.-

Would you close it to tourists? I asked."Y~s. I would close Venice-or perhaps, on

reflection, a little entrance examination and alittle fee." He looked bemused.

Add the little fee to ridiculously high prices.Tourists pay $10 to ride the vaporetto, $13 fora soft drink at Caffe Florian, $40 for a plasticCarnival mask, probably made in China.

Or yOli can buy a palazzo. "Grand Canalis prime;' said Eugenio Scola as we sat in hiswalnut-paneled real estate office overlookingSan Marco. He wore a beautifully tailored blackjacket, a crisp white cotton shirt, jeans with analligator belt, and black loafers with the luster ofpolished calf. For years, buyers were Americans,British, and other Europeans, Scola explained."But now we are seeing Russians. AJso Chinese."

Among his offerings was a three-bedroomrestored apartment on the piano nobile, ormain floor, of a small 18th-cenlury palazzo, orpalace. "Molto bello," Scola said, pulling out theplans. There was a studio, library, music salon,two living rooms, a small room for the help,and a fine view from three sides. Only nine

million euros. If I preferred, there was an entirepalazzo-the 6O,300-square~footPalazzo Nani,to be offered with a permit allowing its conver­sion to another use. "It will probably become ahotel," Scola said. When I asked for somethingmore affordable, I was taken the next day tosee a 388-square-foot studio that would give asardine claustrophobia, but it was only 260,000euros. Someone would buy it as an investmentor pied-a-terre. BUI probably not a Venetian.

IF YOU ARE A VENETIAN, and not part of whatHenry James called the "battered peep-show"oftouTist Venice, if you are a resident who livesin a fifth-floor walk-up apartment (elevatorsare rare in Venice), someone who gets up, goesto work, goes home, Venice is a different placealtogether. The abnormal is normal. A flood isroutine. The siren sounds, protective steel doorscome down. Boots, essential to any Venetianwardrobe, are pulled on. The two and a halfmiles ofpassereffe-an elevated boardwalk sup­ported on metal legs-are set up. Life goes on.

Here, where everything anyone needs to liveand die must be floated in, wrestled over bridges.and muscled up stairs, time is measured by thebreath of tides, and space bracketed by water.The mathematics of distance, an accounting offootsteps and boat timetables, is instinctive toevery Venetian.

When Silvia Zanon goes to Campo SanProvolo, where she teaches middle school, sheknows it will take 23 minutes to walk there fromher apartment all the Calle delle Carrozze. Sheleaves at 7:35 3.01. Memi, owner of a neighbor·hood trattoria, seated at a table reading thenewspaper, looks up and nods. The young mancollecting trash for the garbage barge mum­bles a greeting. She turns onto the Campiellodei Marti and passes a wall draped with a whiteclimbing rose; a bridge, two squares, anotherleft in front of a former movie theater, now atrendy restaurant, and she proceeds on to the

Cathy Newmall is an editor at farge for the magazine.

lodi Cobb has worked in moll' thall 50 coutltril!5. Herstoril!5for the magazine illclude -21st-Century Siaves.-

VANISHING VENICE 95

Frezzeria. Ahead is the Correr Museum anddeaning ladies on hands and knees with bucketsand brushes. She crosses the Piazza San Marco,blissfully empty in early morning. "I step on thepaving stones and fall in love with the city allover again;' she says. Another bridge, a briskwalk across the Campo San Filippo e Giacomo,and she arrives. It is exactly 7:58.

Listen. Venice should be heard as well as seen.At night the eye is not distracted by the radianceofgilded domes. The ear can discern the slam ofwood shutters, heels tapping up and down thestone steps of bridges, the abbreviated drama ofwhispered conversations, waves kicked againstthe seawall by boats, the staccato of rain on can­vas awnings, and always, always, the heavy, sadsound of bells. Most of all, the sound of Veniceis the absence of the sound ofcars.

Often Franco Filippi, a bookstore ownerand writer, cannot sleep. and so he gets up andthreads his way through the maze of streets.flashlight in hand. stopping now and then to

96 NATIONAl. GEOGRAPIIIC • AUGUST 1009

luscious decay is a constant. as is

maintenance. Repairing a foundation

damaged by flooding means drainingthe canal, then clearing it of mud.

To live in Venice is costly, but localS

like this couple at the Casino of

Venice willingly pay the price.

playa beam over facades of stucco and stoneuntil the cylinder of light picks out a roundelof carved stone. called a patera. depicting somefantastic beast that slithers, prowls, or flies. It isthen, while the city sleeps and he is rapt in thecontemplation of a touchstone of its past. thathe reclaims his Venice from the crowds that fillthe streets. squares. and canals when it is day.

Gherardo Ortalli, a professor of medieval his­tory. finds his path less poetic. MWhen I go outin the campo with my friends, 1 have to stopbecause someone is taking a photograph of us asif we are aboriginals," he says. ~Perhaps one daywe are. You go and see a sign on a cage. 'Feed theVenetians: When I arrived 30 years ago, the pop­ulation was 120.000. Now it is less than 60.000,"

The decline seems inexorable. Last year alone,the resident population fell by 444. Ortallithinks Venice will end up as simply a theme parkfor the rich, who will jet in to spend a day or twoin their palazzo, then leave. It is 10 a.m., and heis headed toward a kiosk in the Campo SantaMargherita to buy a newspaper before going tohis office, though you can hardly find the pa­pers for the jetsam and flotsam of tourist kitsch:miniature masks, gondola pins, felt jester caps."Everything is for sale,n he sighs. "Even.Venice:'

Meet the official charged with the solemnduty of managing the wear and tear of tourism.His name is Augusto Salvadori, and his cardintroduces him as

Dirutor ofTourismPromotion ofVenict's Tradilion,

History. and Culture

Prot«:tion ofthe Town's ProprIety

and CleanlinessPrevention ofthe Wear Callsed by 1111" Waves

Strut Signage

Love is not too strong a word-in fact, itis inadequate to describe how Salvadori feelsabout Venice. He is not just the city's directorof tourism and promoter of tradition; he is itsdefender. IfSalvadori could command it, everybalcony would be draped with geraniums. (Hedistributed 3,000 plants with that in mind.)Once, dining at a canalside restaurant, he leanedover the table to reprimand a passing gondo­lier for singing "0 Sole Mia:' a Neapolitan, notVenetian, song.

[n fall 2007 he dispatched a commando ofvolunteers to spread the gospel of neatness inthe Piazza San Marco, to remind visitors to fol·low the commandments ofgood behavior: notto eat, drink, or sit anywhere other than in des­ignated areas. "We are fighting for the dignityof Venice,n Salvadori says. In spring 2008, heannounced decorum week; 72,000 plastic bagswere distributed to residents so that they coulddispose ofdog poop. Useful, except that no oneprovided extra trash cans for the used bags.

VA~ISIlING VENICE 97

Tronchllllo. an8J1iflclal )slaodmade 01 dredglldcaoal mUd. ~rvesas a parking lottor uattle tromtho maiolaod.

SACCASAN BIAGIO

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V\RG_ w .......".,~" SlAF.SOURCE. crTY Of val",E; """...........; """"Nte'" ""NICE_TOURIS.. """""'.

"The city is consumed by tourism;' says Sal­vadori, seated in his office in the 16th-centuryPalazzo Contarini Mocenigo. "What do Vene­tians get in exchange?" A frown as his browplummets. "Services are strained. During partof the year Venetians cannot elbow their wayonto public transportation. The cost ofgarbagecollection increases; so does the price of living:'Does it ever, particularly when it comes to resi~

dential property. A 1999 law that eased regula­tions on the conversion of residential buildingsto tourist accommodations exacerbated anongoing housing shortage. Meanwhile, thenumber of hotels and guesthouses since 1999has increased by 600 percent.

"PERHAPS TO HELP;' Salvadori says, "we puta city tax on hotels and restaurants. They saytourists will not come-but I say, tourists won't

100 NATtONAL GEOGRAPltlC' AUGUST Z009

come for a few euros?" He glares. "} cannotbe worried about hotels. I have to think of theVenetians. My battle is for the city. BecauseVenice"-his voice softens, he touches hischest-"is my heart."

Tourism has been part of the Venetian land­scape since the 14th century, when pilgrimsstopperl en route to the Holy Land. With theReformation of the 1500s, tourism lagged, butregained momentum in the 17th century asupper-class Europeans, intent on acquiring thefine sheen of cultural experience, embarked ona "grand tour:'

$0, what's so different about tourism now? Iask Ortalli, after he has settled into his office."Yes, there was the grand tour;' he replies. "Butthen people were invested in hospitality. Now,Venice gets giant cruise ships. The ship is tcnstories high. You can't understand Venice from

ISOtA 01SANMICHEU

tcITY CEMETERY)

PLACES TO S'rAY Of Venice's six districts. or seslieri,Cannaregio has the most residents, San Marco the mosttourists. A 1999 law made it easier to convert residencesInto hotels and guesthouses. further diminishing thehousing supply for locals.

Accommodationsestablished

• Before 1999• After 1999

ten stories up. You might as well be in a helicop­ter. But it's not important. You arrive in Venice,write a postcard, and remember what a wonder­ful evening you had:'

The malady is chronic. The onset of infection,says art historian Margaret Plant, dates to the1880s, when the city "was fetishized, and its facewas turned resolutely to the past. At tbat pointzealously guarded Venice became a commoditycity, a package of the totally picturesque. Its owncitizens were confirmed as a lower order:'

The contagion seeps down streets, climbsbridges, and crosses the piazza. "There goesanother pie<:e ofVenice:' Silvia Zanon, the teacher,said sadly when La Camiceria San Marco,a clothing store located near the Piazza SanMarco for 60 years, had to move to a smaller,less prime spot because the rent had tripled.The shop, quintessentially Venetian, tailored

pajamas for the Duke of Windsor and sportshirts for Ernest Hemingway. "It's like leavingthe house where you were born;' said SusannaCestari, who had worked there 32 years, pack­ing boxes for the move.

In August 2007, Molin Giocattoli, a toy storeso popular an adjacent bridge was called theBridge of Toys, closed. Since December 2007,ten hardware stores have gone out of business.In the Rialto market, souvenir sellers havereplaced vendors who sold sausages, bread, orvegetables. Tourists will not notice. They do notvisit Venice to buy an eggplant.

They do, however, come to get married. Thetourist machinery has incorporated weddings­720 in 2007. Predictably, nonresidents whomarried in Venice that year outnumbered resi­dents by nearly three to one. Should you wishto tie the knot, the marriage office of the City ofVenice will oblige for $2,400 on weekdays. Onweekends, $5,500. Would the happy couple likethe ceremony broadcast on the Internet? Onehundred ninety dollars, if you please.

As for Carnival-once a charming, neigh­borhood event, now a commercial frenzy ("acultural hijacking:' Robert C. Davis, a profes­sor of history at Ohio State University, wrote inVenice, the Tourist Maze)-sensible Venetiansleave town.

One thing the Venetians haven't abandoned istheir cynicism. When the exodus is complete, ifthe city ends up as nothing more than an exqui­site, gilded bonbonniere, "Who will be the lastVenetian left?" a woman whose family reachedback generations was asked. "I don't know," shereplied. "But certainly the last Venetian willwant to be paid for it:'

Meanwhile, plans for the city's salvation ap­pear and disappear with the regularity of thetides, but the stakes couldn't be higher: Tourismin Venice generates $2 billion a year in revenue,probably an underestimate because so muchbusiness is done off the books. It is, reports theUniversity of Venice's International Center ofStudies on the Tourist Economy, "the heart andsoul of the Venetian economy-good and bad:'

Some people suggest that Venice's wounds are

VANISHING VENICE 101

self-intlicted- -the sequelae of the drive to wringevery last eum, yen, and dollar out of tourism."They don't want tourists," observes a formerresident, "but they want their money. Americantourists are best. They spend. Eastern Europeansbring their own food and water. Perhaps theybuy a little plastic gondola.~

There is talk, always talk (this is Italy) aboutlimiting tourists, taxing tourists, imploringthem to avoid the high seasons of Easter andCarnival, but tourism-intertwined with theloss of resident population, complicated by thepower of hoteliers, gondoliers, and water taxidrivers, who have an interest in maximizing theinflux of visitors-defies simple solutions.

"Let me remind you, the loss of population ...is not only a problem in Venice but in all historicaltowns, not only Italy;' cautioned Mayor Cacciari."The so-called exodus, which dates back veryfar in time, is deep rooted in the lodging issue:'

Redemption may be out of reach. "It is toolate," Gherardo Ortalli, the historian, says.

102 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC· AUGUST 1009

There is lile in Venice (440 birthsin 2007). but an aging population,fatting birthrate. and families wholeave (by barge, of course) for moreaffordable housing on the main­land have reduced residents from150.000 to 60.000 in five decades.

"Nineveh is finished. Babylon is finished. Venicewill remain. That is, the stones wiII remain.1llepeople won't:' But for now there is still life aswell as death in Venice. Franco Filippi walks atnight.in search ofcarvings on weathered walls.Silvia Zanon leaves for school, crosses SanMarco only to fall in love with the city again,and, assuming it is in season, you can still man­age to buy an eggplant.

"Venice may die;' Cacciari insists. "But it willnever become a museum. Never.~ Perhaps. In1852 art critic John Ruskin wrote thal the Doge'sPalace would not be standing in five years. Acentury and a half later, it does.

To glide from the slate green waters of thelagoon past San Giorgio Maggiore to the San

Marco Basin, to approach the Doge's Palacewith its tracery of arches and columns, to see itas the doges must have-enthroned on a gildedbarge surging through a silver sea, oars dippingand rising, banners pulled taut by wind-is tosee that beauty, difficult and bruised, survives.

As does romance. What is Venice-so seduc­tive, so lethally attractive-except the most sub­lime setting for the trilling of the heart?

For example, one fall day not long ago twochildren, 12 and 13, from Grosseto, a town inTuscany, decided to nm away. Their parents dis­approved of their romance, so they saved andspent their allowance on a train to Venice. Theywalked narrow streets paved in stone and lin­gered on the bridges that vault the canals. Nightapproached, and with it the need for a place tostay. They arrived at the Hotel Zecchini, a modestguesthotlse with an inviting orange-and-whiteawning. The clerk heard a small voice askabout a room, looked up, saw nothing, leanedover the desk, and looked into the faces of two

children. Skeptical of their story about an allntwho would arrive soon, he gently questionedthem, listened, then called the carabinieri.

"Such innocence and tenderness. They justwanted to be together:' said Elisa Semenzato,the hotel manager. When the carabinieri ar­rived, they took the pair on a tour of the cityin their boat, then to district headquarters ina former convent and put them to bed in veryseparate rooms. The next day they were serveda three-course meal on a table set with linens ina hall facing the 15th-century courtyard.

Romance triumphs; reality intrudes. Theparents, less than enchanted with the Romeoand Juliet narrative acted out by their children,arrived that afternoon to take them back toGrosseto, away from the soft ache of first loveand the gilded beauty of Venice.

Kisses end. Dreams vanish, and sometimescities too. We long for the perfect ending, butthe curtain falls along with our hearts.

Beauty is so difficult. 0

VANISHING VENICE 103

Framed in the windows of the Caffe Florian, well-heelecl tourists become Ilamboyant extras in theopulent theatrics 01 carnival, when fantasy is embellished with waterfalls 01 lace and voluptuous silks.

VANISHING VENICII lOS

106 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC· AUGUST :1009

Though the acqua alta frequently floods low-lying parts of town like the Piazza san Marco. residents

simply put on boots and accept it as a mild inconvenience fO( the privilege of Jiving in Venice.

•

'palazzo delCamet1et tghlThe ground floor01 this 161.h-centurybuilding f\oOd$ -----''..1when the acqua altareaches 3.4 leet The.stone facade showsmoderate damal1O.

PUNTA DEllA SALlIT'ETlDE-GAUGE STATION

•

Plana San MarcoOne 01 the lowest spots inVenice, the entrance to theBasilica in San Marco floodsfrequently. Temporary elevatedwalkways provide passage,

Punta della SaM.The t891 tide measurement herehas been the city's zero-levelrelerence lor sea-level rise.

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Circles mark buildings most likely toflood, due to location and structure,when area is undetwater,

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About half ot surveyed walls and build·ings show damage. Turbulent wavescaused by motorboats (moro ondoso)can accelerate the deterioration of canalwalls. When sediment accumulates incanals and clogs sewer ~nes, sewageseeps into adjoining canals and damagesbrick and mortar. Dredging sedimenthelps limit damage.

• ExtenSive Of moderate

Minimal

BUILDING AND CANAL-WALL DAMAGE

FLOOD ZONEVenetians are used to getting their feet wet, and efforts to alleviate the long-term effects

of water are part of dally life in the city. During the acqua alia, unusually high tides cause

~ floods (map). The lowest lying areas (dar1<est blue) are most often inundated.

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VENICEVERSUS

THE SEA

TIle Venetians put down roots-on a cluster of islands in a lagoon

at the north end of the Adriatic Sea-by driving alder and oak piles

into the sandy ground. Atop these foundations they built homes and

palaces and began a battle against the ceaseless rise and fall of the

tides. 'The city's structures, despite reinforcements, have suffered the

assault of brackish water, sea-level rise, and subsidence (sinking)­

some five inches in the past century. Excessive pumping ofground­

water contributed to subsidence.

Fl",inforced

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Lagoon bed

DETAIL Of MAl.AIl4OCCO BARRIER

Hollow steel gatesfilled with water lie ltatin housing caissonSbuill into the lagoonbed at each inlel

How it wOft(s

MOSE: TO STEM THE TIDES

The MOSE project, begun in 2003 and projected

to be complete in 2014, will string lour barriersmade up of 78 floodgates-at a cost of nearly six

billion dollars-across the three inrets (left) 10

Venice's lagoon. The gates, raised when unusually

high lides threaten flooding, will block seawaterfrom pouring into the lagoon. Controversial from

the start, the project provoked years of politicalwrangling as well as WOfrieS aboUt lagooo ecology.

Lagoon of Venice

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Adriatic Sea

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