The e-book, with notes and explanations, will be published for free under a Creative-Commons licence later this year.
If you want to help me get this text ready, drop me a note here, or send me an email. The booklet is available as PDF or EPUB3.
He therefore had many contacts in the upper echelons of Venetian society, but also in the lower classes, as he had to take down last wills and testaments of the dying. He consequently circulated freely in the city during the epidemic, even during the repeated lockdowns.
4/5
The plague of 1575–77 killed 50–60k of a population three times that. One in three residents of the city of Venice died.
The author, Rocco Benedetti, was a notary.
3/5
The letter is a first-hand eyewitness account of a very severe plague epidemic in Venice, written by a person in the middle of the storm. It describes how the plague arrived, how the state and the population reacted, and what was done to counter the epidemic.
2/5
Extract from the titlepage from 1577. Two woodcuts, one of St Sebastian tied to a tree, pierce by arrows, the other of St Roch, showing the plague buboes on his thigh.
I have made a translation of a Venetian letter from 1576, written during one of the worst plague epidemics ever to hit Venice, and I'm looking for proof-readers.
1/5
#Venice #Plague #HelpNeeded #ProofReading #History #Skystorians
The "Translatio Marci Evangelistae Venetias", by an unknown author, is the earliest description of the translation (movement) of the relics of St Mark from Alexandria in Egypt to Venice in 827–828, by two Venetian merchants.
It also describes the religious and political order of early Venice.
Anybody engaging in Venetian history have stumbled over images of women with their hair set as a couple of horns.
This hair dressing fashion first appeared in the second half of the 1500s, and lasted into the early 1600s. It remained mostly Venetian for the entire period.
#venice #skystorians
#OTD Austrian troops in Venice killed an elephant with a cannon, inside a church.
Not exactly an ordinary day.
venetianstories.com/venetian-sto...
#Venice #Venezia #Elephanticide
Does anybody know what this Venetian style of hair dressing is called?
It seems to have been quite popular in Venice the in the late 1500s and early 1600s, but apparently never gained a following anywhere else.
#skystorians #hairdo #venice #renaissance
Does anybody know what this Venetian style of hair dressing is called?
It seems to have been quite popular in Venice the in the late 1500s and early 1600s, but apparently never gained a following anywhere else.
#skystorians #hairdo #venice #renaissance
The carnival was not, however, like the modern cheap replica. The ancient Venetian carnival sported such noble activities as pig-chasing in the alleyways, a flying Turk delivering flowers, and the public execution of a bull by sword.
venetianstories.com/podcast/epis...
Venetian Stories — Episode 25 — The Venetian Carnival
The Venetian carnival was famous, and was so already in the Middle Ages. Kings travelled across Europe to see the Venetian carnival. It was one of the must-see things for travellers to Venice. 1/2
Likewise, Venice was a centre for the arts, so paintings and casts also made it into Evelyn's luggage.
The treacle, however, was something quite different.
historywalksvenice.com/article/dail...
Venice was in practice the printing house of Europe, so obviously Evelyn had acquired books for his library back home. In Venice, Evelyn found a wider and more international selection of books than was ever available in London at the time.
From his diary for late March 1646:
"Having packed up my purchases of books, pictures, casts, treacle, &c., (the making and extraordinary ceremony whereof I had been curious to observe, for it is extremely pompous and worth seeing) I departed from Venice …"
Venice treacle
When the English gentleman John Evelyn left Venice in 1646, after almost a year in Venice and Padua, he had more stuff than when he had arrived.
From his diary for late March 1646:
historywalksvenice.com/article/dail...
The Venetian Stories Podcast
Episode 23 — Venice treacle — the cure-all remedy
Venice produced and exported Theriac, an ancient wonder medicine for just about every ailment imaginable. It was a flourishing business for centuries, and an important part of the Venetian economy.
#Venice #Theriac
While unsigned and undated, the prints are likely from the 1600s. The Testa d'Oro pharmacy made theriac from 1603, and made quite a show of it.
Teriaca was a kind of wonder medicine and general antidote, of which Venice was the main producer in Europe. The authorised pharmacies were obliged by the authorities to do much of the work in public, to prove that they didn't cheat on the ingredients or on the procedure.
The preparation of Theriac.
These two prints depict elements of the public preparation of theriac at the Testa d'Oro pharmacy in Venice, at the Rialto bridge, which is seen in the background.
#Engravings #Medicine #Theriac #Venezia #Venice
The Provveditori e Sopraprovveditori sopra Banchi were, in 1524, charged with overseeing the banks operating in Venice, around the markets at Rialto.
Since the Middle Ages, noble families had operated banking activities around the Rialto with insufficient oversight.
#Banking #Venice #SkyStorians
In Venice, there's a statue of a bearded man on the façade of the church of San Zulian, above the entrance.
Yet another saint, one presumes, walking on towards St Mark's.
Well, no! That's Tommaso Ravenna, astrologer & physician, who in the 1500s got rich and famous selling remedies for syphilis.
Help with Latin phrases needed.
Esse suum infirmo medicus memorare tenetur.
Mors praevisa parit saepe medelam animae.
What's this supposed to be in English?
The various online translators produce mostly meaningless babble.
#latin #transltion
A member of the Pregadi — the Venetian senate — dressed in the traditional toga of important magistrates, with a black stola as a sign of mourning. The Republic of Venice had special rules about how magistrates could dress, even in periods of mourning.
#SkyStorians #Venezia #Venice
This painting depicts a shoemaker specialised in calcagnette and zoccoli.
There were calegheri, calzolari, scarpéri, zavatteri, zoccolai, pianellai, and scarperut.
All these categories of shoemakers were organised in a single guild, the Scuola dei Calegheri in the Campo San Tomà.
#skystorians
The well-known image of the plague doctor with the beaked mask doesn’t really have a lot of support in our sources.
Did he even exist?
And if he did, was he Venetian?
#Venice #Podcast #Skystorians #PlagueDoctor
The well-known image of the plague doctor with the beaked mask doesn’t really have a lot of support in our sources.
Did he even exist?
And if he did, was he Venetian?
#Venice #Podcast #Skystorians #PlagueDoctor
The Piazzetta is the part of the Piazza San Marco closest to the lagoon, around the two columns.
Commonly seen there, in the early 1700s, were a prison ship, a street brawl and noblemen in the broglio, engaging in the less noble side of Venetian politics.
#skystorians #Venezia #Venice
Over the more than a millennium of the Republic of Venice, it issued a wide variety of coins for all sorts of different purposes. Some were for the state budget only, others for daily use in the city, and others again for ceremonial use or restricted to banking.
#skystorians #Venezia #Venice
I’m sitting on a bench in SS Giovanni e Paolo. The conversation behind me is fascinating; it sounds like a tour guide who really knows his stuff. He’s so good, I decide to tell him so. I walk up to him & glance at his name tag. “I know you!” It was René Seindal of @historywalksvenice.com in action!