Gondolas

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Gondolas on the the Canal Grande (Grand Canal)
seen from the Ponte dell'Accademia
Venice, September 2012

“There were ten thousand gondolas in the sixteenth century, many of them festooned with ornaments and carvings. This encouraged displays of showmanship and rivalry among the wealthier Venetians, who were allowed few opportunities of conspicuous consumption in public. Such a spirit was of course to be resisted by a Venetian state that curbed individualism of any sort in the name of collective brotherhood. So the ornamentation was, in a decree of 1562, forbidden. That is why the gondolas became black.” (Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City)