The
monuments of Venice
Venice's main monuments stand
around the city's main square, the Piazza San Marco, where the Basilica
di San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) can be found. The
Piazza is fronted by the expanse of the Bacino di San Marco (ST. Mark's
Basin), constantly busy with all types of shipping, including the
trade-mark gondole and vaporetti (water buses) and
dominated by Palladio's great church of San Giorgio Maggiore on the
island of the same name.
East from here, and linked to
San Marco by the broad promenade of the Riva degli Schiavone, lies
Castello and the Arsenale, the old ship-building yards that were once the
city's economic power-house. To the west of the Piazza, the Grand Canal
loops north to the Rialto area, home to Venice's superb food markets and
spanned by one of the world's most instantly recognizable bridges, Ponte
di Rialto. North again lies Cannaregio, a sestiere that is cut by
three long, straight canals and scattered with Gothic palaces and
treasure-packed churches. South of the Gran Canal, the three sestiere of
Dorsoduro, San Polo, and Santa Croce are home to beguiling canals and
campi and some of the city's greatest artistic treasures, in the
shape of the Accademia art gallery, the churches of the Frari and Santa
Maria della Salute, and the 20th-century Collezione Peggy Guggenheim -
the most important museum in Italy for European and American art of the
first half of the 20th century. Each sestiere has its own shopping
street and market, with the best of international big-name stores in and
around the Piazza di San Marco.
The Problems in Venice
Modern Venice faces huge problems and challenges, chief of which are the
effects of the ever-increasing high tides during the winter and a rapidly
shrinking population. Modern technology and international aid are helping
to tackle the rising water, with artificial barriers under construction
at the lagoon's mouth to keep out dangerously high tides, and an on-going
program of restoration throughout the city. Population decline is a
harder problem; housing is expensive to buy and maintain, while the huge
numbers of tourists (15 million annually), on which the economy is almost
totally reliant, are driving away the young people that might stimulate
alternative growth. Venice is in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the
very visitors that provide 70 percent of the city's income and 50 percent
of its employment. On the positive side, tourism ensures that the city
remains firmly under international scrutiny in terms of restoration and
pollution control against the heavily industrialized areas of Mestre and
Porto Marghera on the edge of the lagoon, and has helped preserve the
city's ancient tradition of glass manufacture.
