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Venice - Oh my ...
It must be said that our description of Venice wouldn't be complete without this chapter.
Hundreds of years ago it has been the same things that made the venecian world go round: Money and, well, yes exactly. This chapter is about the latter one.
We are not telling secrets: Venice is the city of love. And it has been ever since. The slight difference from today is: You had to afford it. More than 23.000 *BEEEP* were at service, and they were told to be the queens of the biz.
No wonder that, when it came to Carneval, the steady stream of visitors from all over the world grew bigger and bigger!
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Once Venice was THE centre of amusement in Europe. In the 16th century there even existed printed catalogs listing the most skilled and refined *BEEEP* in town money could buy!
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 Michele de Montaigne |
At the same time Michel de Montaigne was wondering in his nice to read travel diary, to meet such an (for him) incredible amount of *BEEEP*, "about hundred and fifty, that made themselves up like princesses with their clothes" and lifestyle.
Well, he spent only a week in Venice and left soon. What ever his motives might have been, if he ran out of money or whatever - only he knows...
*BEEP* in the Gondola
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"Venice girls are such enchanting creatures and entirely made for salaciousness...
Glancing at the juveniles the chastely blush in their faces fades to a voluptous smile as if they had him already half naked in front of the bed. Everything with them seems to aim at one purpose only - lust. Even the gondolas that allow to make themselves comfortable into the most ideal position for convenient pleasure; a soft cushion for the buttocks and leaves enough space for the limbs, two footstools besides to spread the legs upon. Every jolt of the gondola's captain with his rudder is a thrust of pleasure..."
(Wilhelm Heinse, "Ardinghello")
Dear readers, we boldly go for your reading pleasure, but please understand that we could not take the risk digging too deep in the examination of the gondola's lust spending adequacy.
No miracle that the Carneval of Venice, world infamous even in these early days and rampant as it was, gained the more refinement the deeper the moral sunk.
At the beginning the Venecians were quite happy with dressing themselves in furs and stumbling through the alleys bawling shrewd songs like "drink, eat, good cheese, good fruits, good meat, good pasta, good chicken, good capon, drink and eat until you can't no more".
In the late Carneval from 1786 we can observe an entirely different crowd: Turks, Moors, Dalatiens, strange celestial and mundane metaphorical figures, even young girls that swaddled their dogs in diapers and carrying them around as babies, unfortunate victims of the "french disease", the chancre, with oversized *BEEEP*, murderer, hangmen, delinquents with head and without, debauchees, fornicators; even the witty dressing themselves up as Germans, squanderers made up as Swiss, women dressed as bearded athletes, men as women - you name it.
Just like a pre-modern fun society unleashed to its best limited only by fantasy.
O tempora, o mores
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Limning a painting of morals is easier done by, instead of describing the morals, telling about the bans and laws!
Thou shallst not wear false moustaches
 | The 12th of february in 1339 masks are banned completely. Round about 100 years later |
| the council of Ten enacts a decrete in 1458 forbidding men dressed as females to invade the nunneries of Venice. |
| 1502 the council of Then bans "wearing fake moustaches, artificial hair, masks as well as every kind of masquerade.". |
| 1504 this very ban is being verbatim repeated. By the next centuries it is followed up by additional bans that now include the wearing of weapons... |
Thou shallst not hide your *BEEEP*
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In the 16th century the government of Venice established a red light district near Rialto. As you might think of Amsterdam there was repeatedly observed *BEEEP* sitting in windows showing their bare *BEEEP*!
A spectacle that has been immortalized by the so called Ponte delle Tette, which can be translated straight forward as titbridge.
That must have been big fun for the Venecians untile it became GREAT fun - because the government made it a DUTY for the *BEEEP* to show their bare *BEEEP*! This rather unconventional measure had been - from our nowadays point of view - mistaken to fight homosexuality that was spreading out in the city.
Supposedly it seemed more effective for them to impose the death penalty on those convicted of homosexual acts.
Nevertheless: Love in Venice carried on: Venecians enjoyed debauchery as well as those who came from all over the world to follow the call of love...
| Just carry on with Venice for everybody |
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