Stop 1515

[lively classical music]
[water in canal with oars and gondola sounds]

Female Narrator: Michele Marieschi depicts a regatta - a boat race - held in Venice in 1740, during the visit of the crown prince of Saxony. We, the viewers, would have to be sitting in a boat to see the event from this angle. We are, in fact, experiencing the race from the viewpoint of the contestants as they reach a tight bend in the canal. Two accounts written at the time help us understand how extraordinary this occasion was. The first is from a letter by the author Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s father. The elder Goethe had already made plans to leave for Rome when he found out about the regatta, and he lamented that he couldn’t stay in Venice.

Male Actor with German Accent: “If I have ever had the mad wish to be able to divide myself into two bodies, it was on this occasion as it would allow me to send one body to Rome and stay with the other one in Venice in order to enjoy so famous a ceremony.”

Female Narrator: The second report comes from an English writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who watched the once-in-a-lifetime event and described it in her letters home.

Female Actor with English Accent: “[The regatta] was really a magnificent show, as ever was exhibited since the galley of Cleopatra… It is a race of Boats: they are accompanied by vessels which they call Piotes and Bichones, that are built at the Expense of the nobles and strangers that have a mind to display their magnificence. They are a sort of Machines adorned with all that sculpture and gilding can do to make a shining appearance.”

Female Narrator: You can see one of the decorated vessels that Lady Mary mentions in the left foreground, with oarsmen in yellow and pink. It’s strayed into the path of the racing gondolas that are coming out of the shadow on the right.

To see a detailed image of one of the barges that sailed in the regatta, and hear Lady Mary’s description of it, find stop number 1516, nearby.

[music ends]