AA-2026-9B72FE
On the image
Every postwar European tourist with a camera eventually pointed it at this view from the Bacino di San Marco, because the Venetian Republic had spent about five hundred years arranging the Campanile, the Doge's Palace, and the Riva degli Schiavoni into a composition that made ordinary people feel like serious photographers. The shot was taken from the water, probably from a vaporetto or a hired boat, at the distance that flattens the Gothic tracery of the Palazzo Ducale into a single decorative argument for why Venice won.
By the 1950s, the standard Grand Tour had been repackaged as the postwar European vacation, and Venice was its most reliable monument — a city that had already been declared finished in the nineteenth century and had simply kept going. The traveler who took this did what travelers had done since the daguerreotype: confirmed that the place looked exactly like the pictures, then took another picture to prove they had been there.
The Campanile in this frame is the rebuilt one — it collapsed in 1902 and was reconstructed stone by stone, completed in 1912, a fact the city announced with the slogan 'dov'era, com'era' (where it was, as it was). Venice had been practicing for tourism long enough to know that authenticity and its convincing replica are, for most visitors, functionally identical.
Visually related — by likeness
Piazza San Marco Waterfront with Campanile and Doge's Palace, Venice, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-9B72FE. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/piazza-san-marco-waterfront-with-campanile-and-doge-s-palace-venice-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20269B72FE,
title = {Piazza San Marco Waterfront with Campanile and Doge's Palace, Venice, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-9B72FE},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/piazza-san-marco-waterfront-with-campanile-and-doge-s-palace-venice-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Piazza San Marco Waterfront with Campanile and Doge's Palace, Venice, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-9B72FE UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/piazza-san-marco-waterfront-with-campanile-and-doge-s-palace-venice-1950s ER -
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